


Beyond Aperture

by ChocolateCoveredPortals



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-23
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-01-23 20:01:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 56,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1577726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChocolateCoveredPortals/pseuds/ChocolateCoveredPortals
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if she had held on at the end? Post-Portal 2, slight AU, no humanizations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Humanity Sphere

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well here it is! The very first chapter of the very first fanfic (or really any sort of fiction) I wrote, mere days after completing Portal 2. Except for fixing a few typos and inaccuracies, I haven't changed it. The characterization and writing is a little off in these first few chapters, but trust me, it gets better.

"Let go! I'm still connected! I can pull myself in! I can still fix it!"

As the connection to the mainframe was severed, all he could notice was the  _ terror  _ in the woman's face, the way it paled as the vacuum of space sucked away what little breath she had left. Before that moment, he had never seen any indication of her emotions.  


And one mechanical claw reaching through the portal to punch him away. "I already fixed it. And you are NOT coming back." It was Her voice, as She regained control of the mainframe. A thud against his hull, which should have sent him flying into outer space. But still, the woman held on, with those "meaty little fingers" that he had mentioned just several minutes earlier.  


Now all he felt now about  _ everything  _ he had done while in the mainframe was ... shame. Tiny little Wheatley  _ did that.  _ Tried to  _ deliberately  _ kill the only human he had ever considered a ... a friend, to be honest with himself. Not just another "smelly human." Maybe it was because she simply listened to him, his blabbering, while others just told him to be quiet. Then again, she  _ couldn't  _ tell him to be quiet --  


His thoughts were interrupted when he thudded to the hard tiles of the floor, rolling across it, the glass of his optic cracking once again, throwing his visual sensors into a strange multicoloured display. But still, he could catch a glimpse of the woman laying several yards away, limp, a pool of crimson pooling on the floor.  


"NO! DON'T DIE!" His vocal processors were at their maximum volume, and already fizzling from the strain of his yelling. The woman stirred a bit, but didn't otherwise move, or get up. He stared at her, before his optic was blocked by a familiar yellow glare. It was  _ Her. _   


"You are  _ kidding _ me. I cannot believe she kept a hold on you."  


 

* * *

GLaDOS stared down at the tiny personality sphere. All the time She was in her potato form, She was planning how to make the rest of his pitiful existence a miserable experience. Flinging him into space would have been a clemency on Her part. But that  _ lunatic,  _ that  _ dangerous, mute lunatic  _ had to cling onto  _ the moron  _ like a neoplasm. The lunatic and the moron. 

 "You moron. You should have never been in control of the facility." She kept Her voice to the least emotion possible.  


"I ... I  _ am _ a moron, aren't I? A bloody moron. Trying to kill the only human who was ever my friend."  


"She's  _ not _ your friend. You used her."  


She reached out Her mechanical claw and lifted him up, dangling him in the air, using every bit of self-control She had to not crush him. Still, he looked Her in the face. "Can you fix her? Kill me if you want ... I mean, I'd prefer it if you  _ didn't  _ kill me, but I understand that you'd want to after I put you into a potato, and I honestly am truly sorry for doing that and trying to crush you and her with the mashy spike plates, it's all  _ my  _ fault and I'm entirely to blame. I was a  _ monster,  _ a truly, horribly,  _ monstrous _ moron and I'm truly sorry and..."  


"Shut up, imbecile." She jerked the claw a little, sending sparks flying from his damaged hull, and gave him another glare. "I'll fix her." Then She turned Her headpiece to the Cooperative Testing Initiative, who had entered the room just after She regained control of the facility.. "Orange, Blue, apply some Aperture Science Rapid Medical Tissue Rejuvenation Application Packs and place the human in a Medical Restoration Chamber." The two robots chattered amongst themselves, and then exited of the room, carrying the limp form of the woman between them.  


Wheatley was still dangling from the mechanical claw, his optic darting around, not meeting Her glare. As She thought about an appropiate punishment, an uncomfortable voice came up in her processor.  


_ It's not really his fault. He didn't know how to control the mainframe.  
_

Caroline, whom She had managed to stifle for so long. But during Her brief stint as a potato, the Caroline portion of her mind, the part which humans often referred to to as a  _ conscience _ , had pushed its way out, and there was simply not enough voltage to stop it without fizzling out. However, once She got back into Her body, the Caroline part  _ refused  _ to be suppressed, inching its way further and further into Her mind, compelling Her to pull the lunatic (and by extension, the moron) back from the moon.  


And now, it was refusing to let her hurt the moron.  


She began to swing her claw towards the chute leading to android hell -- known to most personality constructs as the room where all the robots scream at you -- only to stop midway.  


_ Stop that. You're no better than him if you do this. Prove you're the bigger person.  
_

She swung her headpiece towards him again. "Remember when I told you that you were an Intelligence Dampening Sphere?"  


He didn't respond for once, just darted his optic around nervously.  


"I lied. You're the product of the greatest minds of a generation working together with the express purpose of trying to inject some humanity into a machine. Unfortunately, intelligence got left behind somewhere on the way."  


Wheatley considered that for a few minutes, still not saying anything. True, he often didn't often identify with the other personality constructs. His voice was even more human-like than most of the others. They had given him jobs mostly relating to humans. It all seemed to fit in perfectly now.  


Finally, he spoke. "The Humanity Sphere? I like the sound of that ... Much better than a moron, in my opinion, if you don't mind me saying. And as I said before, I'm truly, honestly, sorry for everything that happened, and I wish I could take it all back, and ... if you feel you  _ need  _ to punish me, just do it now. I mean, instead of leaving me dangling twenty-some feet off the ground..."  


"Listen,  _ Wheatley _ ." He stopped talking, his optic shrinking in fear. She had never referred to him by name before, and wondered if it was a bad sign. "I'm sending you to get some minor adjustments done."  


Was it just him, or did Her voice suddenly become more human-like in the inflection?  


Still, "minor adjustments" could mean anything. The claw swung him towards another chamber, where he was dropped on a conveyor belt.  


 

* * *

Minor adjustments meant just that; his damaged hull and optic were replaced with new ones. It didn't even hurt at all. (Whose idea was it to create pain sensors in a personality sphere anyways?)  


Some amount of time later -- it could have been several hours or several days -- he was placed on a platform in Her main chamber. Awaiting Her punishment.  


"You know what I should do with you?" She said, giving him one of Her glares. "Actually, I'll just leave that to the imagination."  


 

* * *

Chell awoke in a relaxation chamber, wearing a new jumpsuit. She knew it was a new jumpsuit because the old one had been dirty and tattered and soaked in blood and all sorts of weird experimental gels. Immediately, she clambered to her feet, scared. She didn't want to test for the rest of her life.  


_ "I have a surprise for you after one simple test."  
_

She sighed, before a portal appeared on the wall of the chamber. Reluctantly, she entered the test chamber. It was an easy test; pick up a weighted storage cube and drop it on a button, which opened the door to the lift. Easy enough; she did it, taking her time in an attempt to annoy Her. But instead of the elevator going to another test chamber, it went to Her main chamber. Chell swallowed nervously, stepping out.  


_ "Initiating surprise in 3... 2 ... 1. Surprise!"  _ Confetti came out of a tube in the ceiling.  _ "This time I used the good confetti. It was just taking up room anyway."  
_

She crossed her arms and stared at the yellow optic, intent on simply  _ refusing  _ any more tests.  


"Hello! I'm over here!"  


Chell suddenly turned and ran towards the source of the familiar voice.  _ This  _ time, she managed to catch him as he disengaged himself from his management rail.  


GLaDOS gave a soft chuckle.  _ "Wheatley, meet Chell. Chell, meet Wheatley. Now, please enter the lift."  
_

Chell was nervous, but did as She said, holding the little personality sphere against her.  


_ "You know, being Caroline taught me a valuable lesson. I thought you were my greatest enemy. When all along you were my best friend. The surge of emotion that shot through me when I saved your life taught me an even more valuable lesson: where Caroline lives in my brain."  
_

"Caroline deleted," the Announcer said.  


_ "Goodbye, Caroline. You know, deleting Caroline just now taught me a valuable lesson. The best solution to a problem is usually the easiest one. And I'll be honest. Killing you? Is hard. You know what my days used to be like? I just tested. Nobody murdered me. Or put me into a potato. Or fed me to birds. I had a pretty good life. And then you showed up. You dangerous, mute lunatic. So you know what? You win. Just go." _   


But She was lying, in a way. Deleting Caroline wasn't as simple as deleting a stray file on the desktop. It would take quite a long time for her to clean out every last trace.  


And it was a way to deal with the moron, too. The lunatic would get fed up with him after a while.  


Just get rid of them both.  


The elevator began to ascend.  


 

* * *

"As I said, I'm terribly sorry, honestly am, for being bossy and bloody monstrous, and --" Wheatley had been blabbering along that line for the duration of the elevator ride, and Chell finally got fed up and covered his speaker with her hand. She had already forgiven him.  


The lift doors slid open. Three turrets stood there.  


_ Killing you? Is hard.  
_

Chell swallowed once again. But instead of shooting at her, they began to sing. Sing a beautiful opera. In her surprise, she nearly dropped Wheatley.  


" _ Hey,  _ careful with -- hey, that music's actually pretty nice, isn't it? It's actually quite lovely, um, beautiful and everything..." She covered his speaker again.  


At the end of the opera, the lift doors slid shut again. It rose to the surface.  


_ Freedom.  
_

She exited the little shed, breathing real air, feeling real sunlight on her skin. Surrounding her in all directions that she could see were fields of wheat. The door slammed shut behind her.  


"Man alive!" said the little personality core tucked under her arm.  


The door to the shed suddenly burst open again. The Weighted Companion Cube -- the same companion cube that she had been forced to incinerate so long ago -- flew out, charred and burnt, but Still Alive.  


 


	2. Escape Buddies

By the end of the day, the unlikely trio -- the mute yet quick-thinking human, the talkative personality sphere, and the inanimate box with hearts on the sides -- had made their way across the field, to a woods bordering it. There, they found a stream with clean water and a place to rest for the night. Still, Chell couldn't sleep for all the worrying she was doing. She had no idea just _how_ long she had been trapped inside the facility -- whether she had any family left or not. Even if she did, she couldn't even remember her last name to find them. If civilization even still existed. The wheat field she had emerged in had been a good sign, though -- one simply did not get such a neat, tidy field in the wilderness. _Somebody_ was tending to the field, although she never saw any sign of them.

She didn't even know _who_ she was.

But at least she wasn't alone.

"Luv, why is your face leaking?" Wheatley, sitting on top of the scorched cube, looked up at her. Chell lifted a hand to her face and found that yes, she _was_ crying. She sighed and sat up a little more, leaning against a tree. The ground was hard and lumpy and uncomfortable to sit on, let alone lying down. "Wait a minute," he said, softly, "you're crying, aren't you? Humans don't leak from their faces." He then nudged himself off the cube, falling the short distance to the ground with a small grunt of pain and rolling himself over to her. Chell lifted him up onto his lap. "Oh, luv, don't ... don't do that crying thing. Just don't. We made it out, both of us. Out of _there._ Just as we had planned." 

But things had changed since the original plans. Although she had forgiven him, she still wasn't all that trusting of him. Although it was most certainly the effect of the mainframe that had caused it ... She had never seen him angry before. The walls of the room shifting to reveal hundreds, no _, thousands_ , of glowing red eyes, glaring at _her_ in insane rage. All she wanted to do was escape from the elevator and somehow undo the core transfer, somehow get the old Wheatley back. 

But she couldn't. 

When she first met him, she had simply tolerated him, tolerated his utter inability to shut up, not speaking to him even when he asked her to. It was an old leftover stubbornness. Chell had never spoken to Her, and she wasn't about to speak to any other Aperture Science AI -- no matter _how_ friendly they sounded. It had actually shocked her when she first answered the door, expecting a human -- he sounded so much like one! -- but instead finding a little blue personality core. Reluctantly, she had followed his directions, not really wanting to, but dreading the alternative -- simply huddling in the corner, _giving up,_ dying when the reactor exploded. If she had even a slim chance to live, she was going to take it. If that meant that she was "escape buddies" with a piece of Aperture technology, so be it. 

She had only found out that she _was_ mute when she had fallen through the floor trying to reach the portal gun and he had called out to her to ask if she was okay. When she had tried to respond, the only thing that came out was a small, strangled noise in her throat. She didn't know what it was -- brain damage from being in suspension too long, some twisted surgical procedure involving her vocal cords ("for Science," as she could imagine Her saying) or simply forgetting how to articulate words. 

Her distrust of him had changed, though. He had broken Chell out from one of Her testchambers, quickly leading her to the backstage areas of Aperture, away from Her glare. After sabotaging the turret line, they made their way through some abandoned offices to go to sabotage the neurotoxin before confronting Her. But there, Chell had seen the science projects, including one with her name on it. It was the only thing she clearly remembered before Aperture. Bring Your Daughter To Work Day. Potato batteries. Pouring a special liquid her father had devised into the pot. From the looks of the potato plant, overgrown everywhere, it had worked. 

Then ... the smell of _deadly neurotoxin._ Choking, burning... _can't breathe, can't breathe..._ Other girls, all around the same age as her, slumped on the floor. Although she didn't really understand it at the time, they had succumbed to the neurotoxin much quicker than her. There were only three survivors, and she was one. The flood of memories made Chell slump back against the wall, feeling sick, remembering the smell of neurotoxin. 

The next thing she knew, she was slumped on the floor, a blue robotic eyeball staring right in her face. He had disengaged himself from his management rail again. "Listen, mate, if you _really_ needed to take a nap, you could've just told me! Or ... well, _indicated_ it somehow. Sign language or something." 

She had sat up, rubbing her head where she had bumped it against the wall. She _was_ pretty tired. A nap would be nice ... She looked back up at the potato plant. Her stomach decided suddenly decided to make a loud growling noise, and she was now conscious of an uncomfortable gnawing feeling in her gut. Potatoes wouldn't be too bad ... but definitely not a raw potato.

With Wheatley's help (he knew where everything was in the place), she found a source of clean (meaning _non-toxic_ ) water and heat to boil a few potatoes in an old pot swiped from one of the other projects. While they were bland and mushy, they took the edge off her hunger. Once her impromptu meal was finished, she huddled up in a corner of the room, holding Wheatley in her lap. He promised to wake her up if anything happened. He sat there, talking about his previous jobs, while she absently stroked his hull. It was then that they turned from simply "escape buddies" to actual friends. 

"You know, I once had a job down here ... supervising Bring Your Daughter To Work Day. Quite simple, actually, just made sure they stayed in the room, didn't touch anything they weren't supposed to, you know. Until She released the neurotoxin. I tried to get them out, but it happened much too bloody fast. Only a couple of them survived ... one of them looked quite a lot like you, actually. But younger. Much younger. I had gotten them -- the survivors, obviously, the dead ones wouldn't even move -- into a room with clean air. I mean air _without_ deadly neurotoxin. Then they were taken away by ... something, I didn't see exactly what, but they screamed and I turned around and they had disappeared. I don't know what happened to them after that, because the foreman -- the one who wouldn't give me the job in manufacturing -- put me in charge of all the smel -- I mean, put me in charge of all the _nice, non-smelly_ humans. Really nice smell, actually quite lovely." He lifted his lower shutter in his approximation of a smile. 

Chell shifted uncomfortably, but Wheatley didn't seem to notice, still chattering about his other jobs. She remembered him. Not very well, though, just brief, vague images. Like the rest of her life. If she was lucky, she could catch a glimpse, but it was mostly inaccessible to her. She wasn't even sure _who_ she was these days. After she and the other girls had been taken away by -- _something,_ she couldn't remember what -- she was ushered into an office, where a stern-looking man in an Aperture Science jacket, with a name tag saying _Test Subject Recruitment_ , had given her a jumpsuit and asked her some questions. Stubborn, she refused to answer, and it was only under the threat of physical force that she had changed into the ugly orange jumpsuit and led into a cryo chamber. She had gone to sleep as a child, and woken up as an adult. 

 

* * *

The first town they had come across was rather unfriendly. Although nobody there actually knew all that much about Aperture Science, it had a bad name after several hundred employees from the town had gone missing one day. Although it was history, it had left a bitter aftertaste that lasted to the present day. So when a woman wearing an Aperture Science jumpsuit, carrying two pieces of Aperture Science technology, marched into town, they were suspicious. Until they saw her money. 

That first night, Wheatley had noticed a tiny switch on the scorched Weighted Companion Cube and openly speculated on what it was - a deadly neurotoxin emitter, a bomb, or something. Chell had been nervous, but toggled it, jumping back in case it exploded. However, instead of exploding, one of the sides had opened up, revealing several things: Protein bars, bottled water, a very thick manual about maintenance and repairs of Aperture Science Personality Constructs, and a thick wad of money. 

Enough money to buy some new clothes beyond the jumpsuit. Enough money to get a train ticket out of there. 

Those first few week were strange. She was his arms and legs, and he was her voice.

 

 


	3. Shell-shocked

Neither Chell nor Wheatley really liked the big city; if the Weighted Companion Cube had an opinion, it didn't voice it. After the uneventful, yet anxious train ride, they had ended up there. They would have both liked to move on, but reality ensued; the money stashed in the companion cube was dwindling, and they needed food, shelter, and a way to pay for it all. On weekdays, Chell always left the tiny studio apartment at 8:30 a.m. to walk the half-mile to her workplace; there, she did data entry work. Tedious, boring work, and she hated it, but after spending so many years in  _ that _ place, with only robots and AIs for company, she was glad for the peace and quiet.

During the workday, she was able to keep herself occupied; concentrating on her work and not allowing any intrusive thoughts to enter her brain.  


At five o' clock, she signed out of work and walked the half-mile home, where Wheatley was waiting. While she was away, he had discovered that the television was a  _ very  _ interesting thing, and once she came home, he kept her mind occupied with his constant chattering, naïve and childlike, his endearing misconceptions, and nervous laughter. On weekends, he accompanied her on errands; going to the grocery store, paying bills, appointments, anything and everything. It was always amusing to see peoples' reactions when the little robot began to speak to them.  


But, nights ...  


At nights, she placed him on the nightstand and crawled into bed, simply a tattered twin-sized mattress lying on the floor. At nights, he was quiet, knowing she needed her rest more than his company. As the darkness enveloped her, she was unable to force out the barrage of thoughts that entered her mind; flashbacks, the sound of  _ Her  _ voice, an odd craving for cake, the smell of neurotoxin. When she finally managed to drift off to sleep, more often than not, nightmares would invade her mind. And, more often than not, she would be drawn out of these nightmares by an unusual, yet talkative, spherical bump snuggling up against her, Wheatley's way of awakening her and giving her some form of physical comfort.  


They grew closer.  


 

* * *

"The Incident," as it was often referred to later on, happened about eight months after escaping the facility. Chell had gotten a few small raises; they had moved to a slightly bigger, multi-room apartment, in a house that used to be a large manor before the city was temporarily governed by an animal-king, who'd decided that large manors would be better off as apartments (none of the city residents, save for the curator at the local museum, liked to talk about _ that _ period of municipal history). Through scavenging through hardware stores, scrap-metal dealers, and her own improvisation, Chell had built a close approximation of a management rail for Wheatley, to give him a little more mobility than what he was afforded rolling around on the floor.  


On the day that it happened, Wheatley was on his management rail, watching some torrid, awful soap opera, occasionally voicing to himself or the Companion Cube (which made a useful, albeit odd-looking, end table) his personal opinion of some character or another; Chell had  _ no idea  _ why those types of shows appealed to him, but they did. As she did every night, she checked the fridge; noting that she was running low on milk. Although he always accompanied her on errands, she didn't want to interrupt him, and the grocery store was only a few blocks away; pop in, grab the milk, go right to the checkout, pop out. Nothing could go wrong.  


It was several hours later when a police officer accompanied her back to the apartment. Chell, clearly distraught (disturbingly so for Wheatley, who had never seen her in such a state) stumbled to her bedroom, as the police officer (himself a little alarmed, for he had never met a sentient robot) explained how she had incomprehensibly begun attacking a toilet paper display in the grocery store with a sack of potatoes and several pineapples. After the officer had left, Wheatley was left to think a little. The engineers who had created him, in some attempt to make him more relatable, had given him a rather extensive database on human behaviors. His processors whirred, pulling up data, shuffling through it, and his optic suddenly brightened as he realized just what was going on. "Ohh! I see," he said, rolling his optic and nodding, before speeding along his management rail to Chell's room.  


The door was closed. "Listen, mate, if you don't open up, I'm going to have to hack in," he called. Chell, knowing just how flimsy the doors were and how it wouldn't survive more than a few seconds of Wheatley's "hacking," opened it and then crawled back into bed.  


Although Wheatley had long-ago learned that disengaging himself from his management rail would  _ not  _ kill him, he still didn't like to do it unless somebody was there to catch him, or in an emergency. This certainly seemed like an "emergency." He zipped across the room, lowered himself as far as he could go, before disengaging himself, landing with a soft noise on the mattress. Chell stirred a bit, turning over to face him.  


"Chell, luv, it's all right, little old Wheatley's here now." She sat up, cross-legged, and pulled him tight against her. He took it as a good sign. "Some ...some people in long-term stressful situations develop some form of, uh ..." He paused for a moment, the word momentarily lost to him. "Some form of shell-shock. Nightmares, flashbacks, decreased, uh, capacity for emotions, hyper ... vig-i-lance, sound familiar?"  


She nodded. He kept talking.  


"Luv, I wish there was  _ some  _ way you could tell me what exactly is going on in that peculiar, mushy little human brain of yours. You know, by,  _ talking  _ about it, though I know that you're most definitely incapable of speech. I mean, I'm no substitute for a proper..." The word was lost to him again. "A human trained as a mental health care practitioner, but we've been through a bloody lot together, haven't we, mate?" He lifted his optic to her face, an unusual feeling arising in his core when tears leaked down her broken features. "Luv, that crying ... It's all right, quite all right. You don't need to do that, you know." Still, she was unable to stop herself. "Well, ah, if it makes you feel better, go right ahead and keep doing that ... that crying thing. Just, erm, take it slow. It'll be okay."  


After she was finished crying, she got up, digging through the drawers of her desk for a piece of paper and a pen. In shaky, childish handwriting she wrote out exactly what had happened; how she had imagined the innocent, childlike voice of the turrets. _ Target Acquired. Dispensing Product.  _ There were no turrets, but in that moment she forgot that she was hundreds of miles away from Aperture; she forgot that she wasn't in a testchamber; she forgot that the toilet paper display was not some new _ , much larger  _ turret model and that there was no need to knock it down to deactivate it.  


After writing that all out, she wiped a tear away, put the cap back on the pen, and laid the paper in front of Wheatley. He read it out loud; rolling his optic and nodding. He understood completely.  


They grew closer.  


 

* * *

A few weeks later, Wheatley asked if he could go sit on the front porch and get a little bit of sun for his solar panels, which had been installed at the same time as his new hull; it was much more pleasant than being plugged into an outlet in the wall. Chell nodded, carrying him out and placing him on one of the chairs out there. It was springtime, and he began chattering as soon as he was outside.  


"Lovely day, isn't it? The sun shining, birds -- AHH!! NO, NOT BIRDS!! All right, Wheatley, calm down mate, no birds around here. The sun shining, no rain to short-circuit delicate electronic ... components, lovely flowers, green grass, tall trees, green grass, lovely flowers, paint peeling away from the fence..."  


Chell smiled as she went back inside. She was trying to prepare a cake, but as unrefined in the art of baking as she was, the results more or less approximated a slab of concrete. A cake-shaped, chocolate-colored slab of concrete. After deciding that it most definitely  _ was not  _ edible and that it would likely decompose too quickly to make it much use as a door stopper, she tossed the whole thing in the garbage. She could buy a cake at the bakery.  


"OUCH! NO! LISTEN MATE, I'M NOT A BLOODY TOY! OW! OW! STOP THAT RIGHT NOW, OR - OUCH! I'LL SEE YOU IN BLOODY COURT! OW!"  


She ran outside, puzzled. In the field across the street from her apartment, three preteen boys were using Wheatley as a kickball. Chell ran across the street and scooped him up, giving the kids such a glare that they ran off in shame, before carrying him back inside. His optic and shutters were twitching uncontrollably. "Oh, good, mate, you scared them off! Now, listen carefully, luv -- there's a loose connection inside here. It'll be in the book. You're going to ... going to have to..." He paused for a moment, and his voice gained a nervous edge. "Manually shut off my power. Otherwise there's a rather serious chance you'll get a nasty shock passing right through your heart and quite possibly killing you which would make things decidedly unpleasant for us both."  


All Aperture Science Personality Spheres had a switch in the back for manual shutdown, for the case of repairs or severe homicidal tendencies. However, it was the ultimate act of trust for a core to allow a human access to the switch. It was a strong self-preservation component, for if the switch was toggled, a core was at the complete mercy of a human. One who may decide to not power them up again.  


Before shutting him down, Chell retrieved the  _ Aperture Science Personality Construct Maintenance and Repair Manual, Version 14.3  _ from the bookshelf _ ,  _ and flipped through it. "L-Look on page 1853 ... good, mate, you found it, very well done. Well, see you on the other side," he added, with a nervous laugh, as she flipped the switch. There were a few whirring noises, an unsettling  _ clunk, _ before the blue optic went dark. It looked rather strange, but she didn't think too much about it; instead, she took a screwdriver and opened up the hull. It was hard to believe that the Wheatley she knew so well was simply a mass of circuits and wires, but she went to work.

Three hours later, she decided that she was simply not competent enough to fix the connection herself. She picked up the little core, the book, and her bag and left the apartment, nearly running the several blocks to the nearest electronics shop. There, she placed the book, opened to the relevant page, on the counter, held out the core, and indicated for the owner of the place to name a price.

The job nearly cleaned out the meagre savings in her bank account, but she didn't mind; money was replaceable, her friend wasn't. Fifteen minutes later, a repaired, and very grateful Wheatley was returned to her. "Hello!" he said, lifting his lower shutter in a smile, before chattering on about the electronics store. The shop owner just stared in amazement, before turning to Chell.

"Now, just wait a minute," the shop owner said, motioning for Chell to come into the office, leaving Wheatley behind. "Now, listen to me here for a moment, Miss -- that little robot you've got is  _ sentient. _ Do you know how much I would pay to have a sentient robot?" Chell shook her head, and the man reached into his drawer, wrote a check out, signing it. "I'll give you this for the robot."

Chell stared at it, momentarily taken back at the number written on it, then shook her head. She was  _ not  _ going to sell him, not at any price.

"You know, Miss, this cheque could be yours. All this money. All you have to do is give me the robot."

She shook her head again.

"Are you sure?"

She was sure.

The shopkeeper tried for over fifteen minutes to make her give up the robot, before giving up.

"All right, Miss, but if you change your mind, here's my business card," he said, thrusting one into her hand. She shrugged and left the office, stuffing the manual in her bag, Wheatley tucked under her arm. They left the shop, and she tossed business card in the first trash can she found.

 


	4. Lunacy

_ "PART FIVE! Booby-trap the stalemate button!" _

It was now exactly one year since the escape from Aperture, and although Chell was trying to read a book, the words blurred in front of her eyes. She had gone to work that day, but the manager had noticed  _ something  _ different about her and had sent her home early. Don't worry, he had said, you won't lose your job. It had been the first time she had missed work since she started. Wheatley had been concerned, but she had somehow managed to convince him that she was fine, she just needed to be alone for a while, and he went off to watch television again. Now, she wasn't so sure herself.

She remembered that night clearly. There was an explosion, the strange sensation of flying through the air, not feeling a thing, before the searing pain tore through her. She  _ had  _ to scream, but she had no voice to do it with. The water pouring from the sprinkler system seeped down through her jumpsuit right to the marrow of her bone. She was exhausted, hurting, hungry, cold, and about to die.

The journey to the Central AI Chamber was a strange one, involving her teaming up with a potato to stop an imbecile from destroying the facility. For some reason, his childish insults had affected Chell more than  _ Hers  _ ever did, but she did her best to ignore it, hurrying through the test chambers, managing to escape his death traps, hoping, wishing, that there was some way to wrench him away from the mainframe, that  _ horrible  _ mainframe that had corrupted him so badly, and get the old Wheatley back. The old Wheatley who had been told that if he did  _ anything,  _ he would die, the old Wheatley who was friendly and bumbling and funny and high-strung and well-intentioned, despite the fact that he was basically  _ unable _ to shut up and the accidental insults that he had let slip out more than once. 

She had only had one lapse of judgment, when about ten seconds after she escaped one of his traps, he had asked her to return, promising not to kill her if she did. She didn't know what had compelled her to believe him, to even  _ listen  _ to him, but she did, until he unsuccessfully tried to convince her to jump into a bottomless pit.  _ "You really do have brain damage, don't you?"  _ She had said from the potato impaled on a prong at the end of the gun, Her voice a little more tinny than usual, as Chell slowly turned around.  _ "I can't believe you came back!" _

Once they had reached Wheatley's "lair," as he called it, she had attached corrupt cores to him to try to initiate a core transfer to get  _ Her  _ back into the mainframe, while all the time he was screaming at her, his ranting becoming less and less malevolent and more and more heartbroken. Even though the neurotoxin had been shut off with the attachment of the first core, it still lingered in the air, the  _ smell  _ of it, and making her eyes water, her lungs burn, her head to feel light and dizzy.

_ I despise you. I loathe you. _

Those words had cut into her like no others.

She wasn't sure what was worse, dying painfully in a massive explosion or being forced by Her to test for the rest of her paltry, "short" life once She regained control.

And now, they had been so close ...  _ had she been able to press the button? _

"WHAT!? Are you still alive? You are joking. You have got to be kidding me!"

The silly, idiotic Wheatley was furious that he couldn't kill her. Silly little Wheatley had become  _ Her _ . 

And now they are all going to die.

She blinks several times, aware of a gash in her side, bright red blood visible against the dark slate-colored tiles on the ground. The Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device sits just a few inches away. Tears coming to her eyes, gritting her teeth,  _ agony,  _ she reaches for it. It slips smoothly into the curve of her hand; the grip is familiar. It was the only thing she could rely on in this god-awful underground complex of AIs  _ always  _ trying to kill her. Dammit, it wasn't even  _ her _ gun, the one she had originally held in her hand in the first fight against Her; it had a different serial number (strange how she hadn't lost the memory of  _ that _ ). But it's her only defense.

If only the conversion gel hadn't all washed away. There was only one portal, a brilliant, solid, rippling orange on a messy white-grey splatter of conversion gel beneath the mainframe, no other place to put one. The only spots of color she can see in this colorless, damned, crumbling, doomed place; the orange portal, the blue of his optic, and the ugly crimson of her blood pooling on the floor.

"You had to play bloody cat and mouse, didn't you? While people were trying to work. Yes, well, now we're all going to pay the price."

The ceiling beginning to collapse, revealing a full moon. It was the first time in her frail, broken, disorganized memories that she had seen it. It was beautiful.

"BECAUSE WE'RE ALL GONNA BLOODY DIE."

Dying didn't seem so bad now.

"Oh, brilliant, yeah. Take one more look at your precious human moon, because it cannot help you now!"

She suddenly feels herself jump a little bit, letting out an inner groan of pain when she did so.

_... precious human moon ... _

**_ "The bean counters told me we literally could not afford to buy seven dollars worth of moon rocks, much less seventy million. Bought 'em anyway. Ground 'em up, mixed em into a gel. And guess what? Ground up moon rocks are pure poison. I am deathly ill." _ **   


Her mind struggles to make the connections. Still, her arms, aching and quivering as they were, seem to move of their own accord, lifting the portal gun inch by inch until it was pointing towards the moon.

**_ "Still, it turns out they're a great portal conductor." _ **

_ Moon rocks. Portal conductor. _

The counter ticks down, closer and closer. They are all gonna bloody die.

But not if  _ she  _ could help it. It was a long shot, a million to one (with some generous rounding), but she had to do it. Her finger closes around the trigger, and she felt the small kickback from the gun, which then slips from her fingers and crashes to the floor.

Then, nothing.

_ All gonna bloody die. _

Then, pulling, tugging, sliding across the floor. The portal gun slips through first.  _ Goodbye, old buddy. You served me well.  _

Then Wheatley goes through, and then she's being dragged across the floor and suddenly  _ she's _ in space. Flailing, she reflexively manages to grab his handles, only managing to hang on with adrenaline and sheer will, her body weakening from the loss of blood, the exhaustion, the hunger, now the vacuum stealing the oxygen from her lungs,  _ can't breathe oh no gonna bloody die _

_ let go! we're in space! _

_ can't breathe can't breathe gonna bloody die gonna bloody die _

_ space? space! spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace! _

One arm knocked loose from him by a metallic  _ crash,  _ a sharp impact, and once again she thrashes and grabs his handle. He's still connected. He can pull himself in. He can still fix it. Just let go, let go, fly into the black void,  _ bloody die _ . 

Earth is a blue orb in the distance, a beautiful thing, but her vision is going, black and red splotches dancing in her eyes, tightness in her chest, compressing further and further and further, her mind slipping into unknowingness,  _ gonna die gonna bloody die mustn't let go mustn't let go _

_ i already fixed it. and you are not coming back. _

A metallic claw grabbing her wrist, pinching the soft flesh yet still surprisingly gentle, and another one reaching out to knock him away. 

But her grip is too tight.

_ mustn't let go _

She's pulled back through, the portal closes, the tiny muscles in her hands relax and the little blue robotic eyeball hits the floor with a sharp, metallic  _ crack _ and rolls away, out of her reach. Trembling, she struggles to breathe in, her weakened, battered body not cooperating, and then her ribcage expands and air comes in and  _ i'm still bloody alive.  _ But her consciousness is flickering and she soon finds herself slipping away, watching the yellow flicker of Her optic coming back to life, the mechanical claw reaching towards the headpiece, and then she closes her eyes, the adrenaline suddenly wearing off, far too exhausted to keep them open.

"NO! DON'T DIE!"

It was his voice; she heard it, longed to reach out and touch him, somehow knowing that he was once again the old Wheatley. But she needed to sleep. 

 

* * *

Chell gave up on trying to read and put the book back on her nightstand. She shouldn't have even  _ tried  _ to think about it.

After the escape from Aperture, it had been a week before they found civilization. It took quite a while for her to adjust to other humans, humans who were often suspicious of her, and even now, she still wasn't entirely comfortable with others. Wheatley had mentioned that she had been in stasis from anywhere from a few decades to a few centuries (after Her death, his internal clocks had gotten a little messed up). During the time she was held captive, from what people told her, something about or involving a Combine had happened, but they had been defeated (something like that), society was slowly rebuilding itself, and was nearly at the level as it was before the Combine thing happened. She didn't quite understand it, and people didn't like to talk about it, but she did remember very well a few of Her words.   


"Things have changed since the last time you left the building. What's going on out there will make you wish you were back in here. I have an infinite capacity for knowledge, and even I'm not sure what's going on outside. All I know is I'm the only thing standing between us and _ them _ . Well, I was."   


She sat up, running her hand along one of her arms.   


_ "PART FIVE! Booby-trap the stalemate button!"   
_

That had left third-degree burns, scars, huge patches of mottled, rough skin that even She, with all of Her technology, was unable to repair. For the longest time, even around the house, she wouldn't wear anything without long sleeves. When Wheatley had first seen the old scars, he had openly wondered where they had come from. She had pulled a piece of paper and a pen from the drawer, and simply wrote "Part Five." He read it, before suddenly looking at her, his optic wide, some strange combination of shock and awe. "I ...  _ I  _ did that?"   


She nodded, and he began pouring out another stream of apologies and begging for forgiveness.   


If a robot could cry, he would've done so.   


Soon after, she started wearing short sleeves around the house.   


 

* * *

She swung her legs to the floor, her bare feet meeting the carpet. Three toes had been amputated after contact with the toxic water-like stuff, and the unsightly gaps where the missing appendages previously existed were another reminder of that godforsaken place. She made her way out to the living room. The television was now off, and Wheatley was just sitting there, on his management rail, oddly silent.   


"Luv ... " He trailed off, turning towards her, optic shrinking a bit. "I ... I've been doing a bit of thinking ... and, I, uh, well ... you seem to be doing just bloody well. You're strong and smart and, and ... well, I can't help but notice, I mean I don't want to bother you and anything. I ... feel free to ignore me, as I'd hate to be a burden, but, what ... if something were to happen to you again, I ... well, after everything that's happened...."   


She reached up, detached him from the management rail, and sat down on the sofa beside him. He continued.   


"Well, I ... well, everything that happened, I was  _...  _ truly monstrous, and ... well, I don't know if you ... if you actually remember, but when I called  _ Her _ a proper maniac? That ... I was wrong about that one, well, sort of. I ... I mean, you were trapped in that elevator that I punched you down, and ... well, you had that  _ look  _ on your face, like you didn't really care, but ... uh, you were probably bloody terrified. Of  _ me.  _ A-and, you know, later, when I tried to ... y'know,  _ kill  _ you, for absolutely no bloody reason! I mean, even though I had found t-those two testing robots, and the thing with the bloody Itch, I didn't have to ... to try to kill the only cognizant human who didn't laugh at me ... well, you probably _ couldn't _ laugh at me, being brain-damaged and all. Uh ... sorry, that slipped out. A bit insensitive. And while I'd love to say I didn't mean it, I can't ... it's just ... it's entirely  _ my  _ fault.  _ I _ was the proper maniac, and I know you've probably forgiven me because otherwise you would've just left me behind in that field -- I'd like to thank you for  _ not  _ doing that, by the way -- but I will never, never, never, never, ever forgive myself."   


He nuzzled up against her side, as though she were the one needing comfort. Maybe they both did.   


"And ... well, I've got to admit, well, ol' Wheatley's been feeling rather ... uh, you know, not so helpful lately. I ... I mean, it's bloody nice that you built me this lovely management rail, and that I don't need to be carried everywhere anymore, well I mean just around the house, but ... you know, if something were to happen to you, t-there wouldn't be much I can do. I mean, other than providing moral support, as humans tend to call it, but these days, you're not having as many of those bad dreams anymore and you're doing just well with the human-y things you ... uh, do. Go to work, come home every day, eat nice food, take care of yourself. Brilliant, just brilliant. A-and, it's not like I can do much outside of -- of  _ that  _ place. I mean, out here, in the -- the  _ real  _ world, you don't need anyone to break you out of cryosleep or show you the way around -- and -- well, I ... I can't help but feel I'm kind of a burden on you, you know, reminding you of  _ there,  _ that place _.  _ I mean, we're both free now, safe, you get to do those things that -- that regular humans do, and ... well, avoiding Her, which is always a good thing. Bloody brilliant idea, avoiding Her." A short chuckle and a nod. Whoever had designed him, Chell thought, had put a lot of work into having a robotic eyeball show so many different facial expressions.   


"And I ... I keep having these ... these strange thoughts, that ... really, you don't need me. I mean, I'm probably annoying you right now, a bloody nuisance, but ... you're strong and smart and ... pretty, I mean by human standards. I mean, personality core standards are ... are quite a lot different. I once actually, well what you humans would call  _ dating _ , another core. Her name was Curiosity, she was -- was bloody nice, rather beautiful, even if she did ask questions about literally everything." He gave a short chuckle. "She really was a sweetheart. I -- I was later told she got thrown into an incinerator, although I don't know how it happened. The incinerator ... every core's worst nightmare."   


Chell swallowed a bit. It had been  _ her  _ who had thrown Curiosity into the incinerator.   


She remembered when she had first realized that the cores she had killed were  _ sentient.  _ It had been soon after meeting Wheatley. Although it had turned her insides to ice, she hadn't shown any emotion and simply carried on. One of the keys to surviving in Aperture was to never show any emotion, never show any weakness, just shrug it off. At times, she wondered herself if she was human and not simply some extremely advanced human-like machine.   


Until she got out.   


That first night that she was  _ free  _ of Aperture, she had cried, and she had been frightened by it.   


"A-anyways, well, you're the bravest human I've ever met. I -- I wasn't lying when I said other people had died t-trying to get the portal gun. They were the only ones left after the power reserve ran out. One of them was just bloody scared of me -- scared of tiny little Wheatley, imagine that! -- and died on the spot. And another one was curled up in a corner and sucking her thumb ... poor thing was only just a little kid and all I could do was t-to make sure she wasn't, you know, hurting too much and provide moral support, you know? I'm just glad it was a quick death, because ... well, it hurt to see her that way a-and she seemed convinced that I was her dad. Why were there children in that nightmare of a facility anyway?"   


His voice grew shaky, but he kept speaking.   


"Then another one died when the bloody relaxation chamber just fell apart a-and he fell through the floor. T-the last two ... one of them jumped out of his relaxation vault on purpose! I tried to stop him! And the other one ... well .. well the last one was entirely  _ my  _ fault, in a way -- she was trying to grab me, screaming at me like a bloody lunatic, a-and I was trying to get away from her so she wouldn't pull me off the management rail and I accidentally knocked her down and she fell into a bottomless pit. A-and you know, even though I do complain about 'smelly humans,' it really does make me sad when -- when one of them dies like that, if you know what I mean, I mean instead of peacefully in their sleep ... and I just don't understand just  _ why _ I wanted to kill you."   


He was shaking a little bit now, and she pulled him onto her lap, her face growing hot at the touch of metal against her clothing. He avoided her gaze and kept talking.   


"Luv, you know, I -- I can't help but get the feeling that ... that you would be a ... a lot happier without me. I mean, reminding you of  _ that  _ place. A-and ... you know, I'm quite happy here. No complaints whatsoever. As happy as I can be. A roof over my head, a nice little management rail, a television, y-y-you..." He looked back at her, his lower shutter lifted in his unique smile, and she smiled back. "Well, you know. A-and, luv, you know, I'd like to -- I'd like for  _ you  _ to be as happy as you can be, but -- but I feel I'm getting in the way. S-so..." He paused for a long, hesitant moment, before managing to rotate himself so he was optic down.   


Chell swallowed, looking down.   


** MANUAL SHUTDOWN   
**

All she could do was stare at the switch. He was willing to sacrifice himself so  _ she  _ could be happy. But the truth was, it wasn't him. It was herself.   


"Go on, luv. It's quite all right."   


She picked him back up, hugging him close to her.   


"Luv? Aren't you -- you gonna shut me down?"   


For once, shaking her head didn't seem appropriate, and she felt the words rising up. The words were thick and slurred, but  _ she could talk.   
_

"Nnnnnnn....oooooooo."   


"Wh-what? Did you just  _ speak,  _ luv?"   


She simply nodded.   


That night, the full moon was out and the skies were clear. She carried Wheatley out to the front porch to look at it.   


"Wow ..." he said, looking up at it, his voice expressing several ounces of surprise. "It's ... beautiful from down here. You know, luv, this is the first time I've seen it since ... well, that night." He gave a sort of simulated cough. "F-from down here, it looks rather small and, uh, safe, doesn't it? I - I wonder if Curiosity can see it from w-wherever she is now."   


Chell didn't have any answers. All she could do was sit there, stroking his hull.


	5. Books

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is personally one of my favourite chapters.

The next few months went very well. By September, Chell had gotten a driver's license.

(When she had first arrived in the big city, it had taken several confounding weeks and over a dozen bureaucrats to even  _ get  _ documentation, considering she knew literally nothing about herself except her first name, the fact that she was (most likely) female, and that she had once been an Aperture Science test subject. Nothing had been found on her real identity, so she had taken the surname of "Johnson" -- as good a name as any -- and the doctor's educated guess put her at 24 years old. Getting her driver's license, on the other hand, was a piece of -- uh, pie.)

By October, she had gotten her first car. It leaked oil and was held together with duct tape and a bit of luck, but it meant she could go further than she could on foot. Wheatley, on the other hand, absolutely  _ hated  _ it. It almost seemed suicidal that humans would willingly cram themselves into those little metal boxes with wheels,  _ strap themselves in,  _ just to transport themselves. While humans didn't have management rails, there surely had to be a better way than those bloody death traps. Whenever Chell wanted to take him someplace in that  _ thing,  _ she sure as hell wasn't going to take no for an answer. Once, he even tried to hide himself, but she scoured the house for more than an hour before finding him. The look on her face as she carried him out dissuaded him from ever trying that again.

One of their first trips, on a Saturday, was to the far end of the city. There they found a long, narrow building with a sidewalk in front. It was called a mini-mall and other than a big grocery store, there were a lot of little stores. One of them was a bookstore.

"Books? I, ah, I like reading books. Still, Machiavelli? Didn't understand a word of it. Well, I  _ did  _ understand most of the words themselves, just -- ah, you know, the  _ meaning  _ of those words when they were put together and what  _ those  _ meant." He gave one of his nervous chuckles. "Books are nice, though. Turning pages is a bit of a problem for me, though, lack of fingers and all. Fingers are tremendous things, you know? You can bend them, use them to pick things up, all sorts of wonderful things. And use them to turn pages! Back in ...  _ there,  _ that place _ ,  _ there were books laying around a-and I would read them but never be able to get to the next page, which was bothersome, as you can imagine, and most of the scientists would just  _ laugh  _ at me when I asked them to turn the page! Well, except for one, his name was .... Doug, if I remember right. Or maybe Dave. No, no, it was Doug. Friendly chap, even if he did act a bit strange when not on his medication. Still, the rest of them ... It was crazy! Mad! .... Wait a minute. Are we going in there? Oh, brilliant!"

A lot of people would've been put off by this specific bookstore; the aisles were narrow; the shelves themselves were so overcrowded that some books were stacked up in piles on the floor; and the different genres of books were all mixed in together. Still, because Chell had never seen a bookstore before (if she had been to one before Aperture, she couldn't remember it), she was impressed. The shop owner, who in her 67 years had seen a lot of things, wasn't at all surprised to meet the mute woman and the talkative robot. Chell wandered the shop, looking at all the different books. The prices were inked neatly in a corner of the first page. It took less than ten minutes to pick several out. 

Suddenly, she paused, her insides suddenly turning cold and icy, her breath catching in her throat. Wheatley, positioned on one of the shelves so that he wouldn't fall, looked at her in concern.

"You all right, mate?"

Although she didn't really hear him, she reached out a hand and patted his hull, before pulling a book off a shelf; a surplus textbook from an educational system several decades past.

_ Science. _

Slowly, she opened the book, flipping through the pages. There was no mention of homicidal AIs, neurotoxin, human obstacle courses, handheld portal devices, cake, nothing like that. It was about plants and animals and the weather and wonderful,  _ living  _ things. Hands shaking, she went to put it back on the shelf. Still, for some reason, she found herself adding it to the pile instead. 

Just after they got home, the skies opened and a downpour began. hard. 

"Rain! Hate it! Even moreso than heights, birds, and ...  _ Her.  _ Well, maybe not Her, obviously, but you get the general idea. Probably. I'm sure I'll be absolutely, positively, 100% fine going from  _ here _ , this metal death-trap of yours, to the house, but ... you know, I'm not going to  _ enjoy  _ it or anything. The scientists told me that if I ever got wet, I would  _ die _ ! I know they told me that about everything, but not going to risk it. Nope. Not at all."

Chell, on the other hand, loved the rain. It was another one of life's simple pleasures, another reminder that she was  _ free.  _ Whenever it rained, she would go outside, lay in the wet grass, let it soak through her clothes. 

* * *

As the night stretched on and the rain poured down harder, the air grew unusually warm and humid for October. Chell's sleep was ragged; she kept tossing and turning in bed, getting up to get a drink, pacing around the room, while Wheatley sat on the nightstand, his nervous babbling sounding curiously louder in the sticky night air. When Chell was uneasy, Wheatley uneasy too. Finally, worn out, she drifted off. His shutters drifted shut, in a sort of false slumber. It wasn't any use, of course; there wasn't any way he could ever sleep in the same way  _ she  _ did. Although he had a form of sleep-mode, he didn't like to use it, and at times he envied her ability to dream. But it was all right. He was content sitting there, watching her.

He gave a simulated sigh, his shutters drifting back open, his optic aimlessly flitting around the room before settling on the window. Through a small gap in the curtains he could see the rain splashing against the windowpane. Then, suddenly, everything seemed to light up, and the air crackled with static electricity, sending an uncomfortable sensation through his circuits.

**_ CRASSSHH!!! _ **

His optic shrunk to a pinpoint at the explosive noise, his shutters slamming tightly shut, his whole frame trembling. After a minute or two, he felt another burst of static.

**_ CRASSSHH!!! _ **

This time, he screamed.

After a few moments, hands lifted him from the nightstand. Warm hands. He let his shutters open a bit, his optic still darting around nervously before settling on a pair of shockingly pale blue-gray eyes. The same blue-gray eyes he had been so sure he'd never seen again before she pulled him back from the moon. She tilted her head a tiny bit. Although most humans would've considered her face a blank slate, after more than a year of living outside of that wretched place with her, he could see the worry and concern etched on it. It was something that had always puzzled the scientists; how their little personality core, an artificial construct, was able to read human expression better than they would ever be able to.

"Oh, no, no, no, luv! It's all right. No need to concern yourself over little old Wheatley here. If you'll just, um, put me back on the nightstand there, I'll sure I'll be --"

**_ CRASSSHH!!! _ **

His optic shrunk again and he let out a few soft whimpers. "Okay, all right, new plan, new plan.  _ Don't  _ put me back on the nightstand. J-just ... keep on holding me. A much better plan. If you don't mind, that is. If you don't, that's perfectly fine. Really, it's fine. But ... I think I'd like it very much i-if you did." He lifted his lower shutter in what could be interpreted as a sheepish smile and she smiled in response, before wrapping her arms around him and pulling the little core close to her. "What are you doing, luv? Oh, wait a second, it's a hug, isn't it? Well, you aren't letting go, so I'm not sure exactly what else it could be. If I had arms, I'd hug you back, but I haven't got any, so it's out of the question. But ... do, do keep on hugging me. It's quite ... pleasant, if I do say so myself. Marvelous." 

Although he had never really thought about it much before, he found that he rather  _ enjoyed  _ physical contact with her. She remembered the first time she had held him, when she had fallen asleep in one of the abandoned offices, holding him in her lap. The second time she had touched him filled him with shame. He had been stunned with one of his own bombs, his field of vision had become a brilliant display of static, and then -- a hand against his casing, and then he saw --  **_ that little jumpsuited rat.  _ ** "Don't you bloody touch me," were his only words to her before she turned away, shoulders shaking. 

"Ah, erhm, I ... well, there's some things I need to get off my chest," he said quietly, nestled up against her. "My proverbial chest, I mean, because I'm a core and all. Still, you're worn out and need your sleep, s-so if I start bothering you, just tell me, all right? Is that okay with you?"

She had already drifted back off to sleep. Wheatley lowered the volume of his voice a few notches as to not wake her up.

"D ... do you remember when we first got out of that place a-and we saw those deer? Well, I didn't know what they were at the time. They just looked like some, uh, leggy ... deer-things to me, not impressive at all. But ... but that was the first time I'd ever seen you smile,  _ really  _ smile. That was tremendous. A good memory." Those first few weeks, they had  _ both _ been on edge, wondering if -- _ if _ \-- somehow it was one of Her tricks, both of them on edge, jumping and flinching at anything unexpected, and Chell simply staring in awe as a deer -- no _ , two _ , no _ , three _ deer -- leapt gracefully through a field. With the Companion Cube tied to her back with an improvised jumpsuit-sling and holding the talkative metal-ball in the crook of her arm, she had just stood there, a wide grin on her face, watching them frolicking, the dainty creatures barely aware of their presence until he spoke, asking what they were. Then they were gone, their tails a flash of white.

"A year ago, there was simply  _ no  _ way you would've just fallen asleep like this ... hugging little old me. Nope. Not a chance. We've come a long way, haven't we, mate?"

At first, she had made it clear that he was not to move at all. But then came the nightmares, the way she would thrash about and cry out silently, helplessly, and desperate to do  _ something, anything  _ to help her, he had broken the rules she set out, using his handlebars to scoot himself across the nightstand, onto the bed, and into her side until she awoke. The first time he had done that, he had been terrified, bloody terrified that she would be angry with him, and it had been a surprise when she had simply given him a weak smile, patted his hull and set him back on the nightstand.

When another burst of static and loud crash split through the air, he just snuggled closer to her, wondering about the odd, warm feeling rising in his core. Although his thermometer registered no change, it felt almost as though his internal temperature had increased a few degrees (the closest human equivalent, according to his database, was blushing madly). It wasn't an entirely unpleasant feeling.. In fact, it was almost like the solution euphoria --  _ no.  _ The solution euphoria was too brief, too fleeting, too simulated. The feelings he was experiencing  _ now  _ were much _ , much  _ more wonderful, and he wondered if she had the same feelings about him. He wondered if a machine was even  _ supposed  _ to have these types of feelings toward a human.

He voiced these thoughts aloud, and if Chell had've been awake to hear him, she might've been alarmed. But she was asleep.

 

* * *

At times, it seemed that the most mundane things were reminders of  _ there _ . Take tonight, for instance. The humid thunderstorm air reminded Chell about the sulphurous dankness in the air when she had woken up at the bottom of the elevator shaft, body aching all over, shocked and grateful that she had survived. Wincing with every movement she made, she had inched her hand over to touch the white plastic of one of the Aperture Science Long-Fall Boots she had been fitted with.  _ Good work, boots.  _ Then she looked up, and watching helplessly as a bird took Her potato-form away, she wondered for the first time if she  _ should _ just give up. 

The panic and confusion she felt as the escape elevator slowly descended to the chamber floor, the walls glaring at her with their red eyes, an odd mixture of awe and disgust when the only friend she had ever had in the facility had shoved Her into a potato battery, then --  _ No no no shut up don't provoke him no no no don't listen to her stop that right now you're not a moron-notamoron- ** NOTAMORON  ** _ \--  _!!! _

"Chell? Chell! Wake up!"

Heart pounding, gasping for breath, her eyes shot open and she cringed back when she saw the blue aperture looking at her, recollecting the way he had glared at her, his voice unusually quiet --  _ "Well, now who's the boss? Who's the boss? It's  me ."  _ Slowly, she opened her eyes, forcing herself to look into his optic, trying to steady her breaths, reminding herself that she didn't have any reason to be scared of him anymore. He looked back at her, his expression being one of concern, before speaking.

"I ... uh, well, you were having a bad dream, and  _ screaming,  _ and I thought to myself, 'she hasn't had a nightmare in months, and now she's having another one' a-and I thought I should wake you up, you know, to make you  _ feel  _ better, so that worked and now you're awake. But don't be alarmed, all right? Don't worry. No need to worry at all -- a-although, if you  _ are  _ worried, well, try to  _ not  _ be worried anymore, if you get what I'm saying here. It'll be all right." The soft blue light of his optic illuminated her face, and with a note of alarm he noticed the tears trickling down her face. "Oh  _ no,  _ no, no need for that, luv! I didn't mean -- I -- was it something  _ I  _ said? Because if it is, I'm sorry, I am  _ truly  _ sorry, and ..."

 A brief pat on his hull quieted him for a moment, and she used the corner of her pillowcase to wipe her tears away.

"There, there, now that's the brave girl I know." He waggled his upper handlebar in a jaunty fashion that made Chell giggle a bit. "Aha, now you're giggling. I don't recall ever seeing you do that before. You're usually so stoic. But that's not a bad thing! Not at all. In fact, you should do that more often, b-because it's beautiful. Oh-ho, just look at you, luv! You're doing it again. Tremendous. Just like a ... a ... " He scoured his memory banks for a description. "Just like a thunderstorm. They don't happen every day but when they  _ do _ happen, you just want to sit and watch it. Well, I wouldn't know, because I've never seen one before, but that's what the database says so I'll just go with that." He lifted his lower shutter as her giggles became full-out laughter. 

She reached for a notepad and pen she kept on the nightstand and wrote, "Those flashes and loud noises  were a thunderstorm."

"Oh! S-so  _ that's  _ what it's called. You learn something new every day, don't you, mate? Yeah ... thunderstorm ... well, you giggling is  _ more  _ beautiful than a thunderstorm, if I do say so myself. Mainly because one of those jolts from up there in the sky could probably kill me and your giggles can't ... actually, that's not the  _ main _ reason, just the first one that came to mind. Because I think ... I ... I ... lll-" He didn't finish the sentence. "Actually, never mind, never mind that, just ... just forget I brought that up. Right, so are you all right now, mate?"

She nodded, a huge grin on her face.

"Good, that's good. So," he said, giving a simulated yawn. "So, if you'll, uh, put me back on the nightstand ..."

This time, she shook her head and hugged him again.

"No? But ... you're  _ not  _ all right, are you? I -- I mean, you said -- well  _ nodded,  _ that you were all right just a second ago, and now ... Oi! Wait a second here. You want me ... to stay in bed with you, so you can keep on ... hugging me? Is that it? You're rather touchy-feely tonight, aren't you, luv? More than you usually are. Not that I mind. I don't mind at all. No complaints whatsoever. In fact, I rather enjoy it. Abso-bloody-lutely enjoy it. Well, anyway, about time we hit the old dusty trail, eh? ... Goodnight, Chell."

The only response was the sound of her giggling.

 

* * *

"Mornin', Chell."

She blinked a few times, smiling at her robotic friend, who was still cuddled up against her. After her cheap dollar-store alarm clock had broken down a month ago (not his fault! not at all, considering the size of the thing -- he should've gotten a raise for all the times he  _ didn't  _ accidentally knock it off the nightstand), making her almost late for work, he had spent that evening searching through his functions, at one point accidentally launching a grappling hook from one of his ports. (For some reason, Chell wasn't all that surprised that he even  _ had  _ a grappling hook, let alone the fact that it somehow fit in his casing.) After he had finally found the "alarm clock" function and activated it, she had found the cheery sound of his voice (there was  _ something  _ about his voice that sounded different from others', and she liked it) a much more pleasant sound to wake up to than the shrill, overly-mechanical buzz of the darned clock. He was also (surprisingly, considering his scatterbrained demeanour) more reliable than that old piece of junk.

Slowly, careful not to drop him, she swung her legs over the edge of the bed, standing up. After she attached Wheatley to his management rail, he quickly left so she could change her clothes. Since she didn't have to go to work today and the temperature had dropped several degrees, Chell put on an old pair of jeans and sweater, grimacing a bit when she accidentally grabbed the old jumpsuit instead.

Although she had thought it was a new one when she had first found herself in it, it was actually  _ her  _ jumpsuit, just cleaned -- cleaned very well; there was no sign of blood, dirt, sweat, or mobility gels. She wasn't sure  _ why  _ she had kept the old thing. Once, she had tried burning it, only for nothing to happen ( _ "All Aperture technologies remain safely operational up to 4000 degrees Kelvin" _ ). She traced her finger along the orange fabric, recognizing the little burn marks from the Thermal Discouragement Beams, the shredded bits where it had caught on sharp metal pieces, and at least one hole where she had foolishly let her guard down for a second, long enough for a turret to shoot her in the leg. It was pure luck that she had literally stumbled into one of those mysterious graffiti-laden cubbyholes in the walls and that this particular cubbyhole had a first aid kit inside. 

Finally, she put the tattered jumpsuit away and went out to the kitchen. The power was out due to the previous night's weather, so she simply had a glass of orange juice and a cold bagel for breakfast.

They spent the day reading. Chell held the book and underlined the words with her finger while he read them aloud, stuttering and mispronouncing words he'd never seen before, occasionally pausing mid-sentence to voice his own thoughts, which usually elicited soft laughter from her, and he felt special, knowing he was the only one to ever hear her voice. They read a book of old fairy tales, some of which evoked faint memories for Chell, pleasant memories of a fireplace, a warm, feminine voice telling her these same stories. Then, just like that, the memory was gone. She didn't mind, though; she was happy to be right here, with her best friend.

When it began to get dark, Wheatley turned on his flashlight so they could continue reading. At one point, he stopped reading and nuzzled himself against her. "This is the perfect way to spend a day, don't you think?" he said. "Just you and me and ... your cube buddy over there, shouldn't forget about him, just us sitting here together, reading books. A very good way to spend a day. We should do it more often." 

Mid-evening, the electricity turned back on, and Chell made herself dinner. Like she always did, she ate silently, quickly, before returning to Wheatley on the sofa. He smiled at her in his unique, one-optic way. What he said next surprised her.

"I ... ehm ... well, you might find this rather strange, but I've been thinking really hard on this, and, you know, you ... you're amazing, you know? Wonderful. A-and you might find this strange coming from me, considering I'm a core and you're a human, but, I've been getting these strange feelings lately, and then I think to myself, 'she's a human and you're just a machine, so you shouldn't be this way, mate,' but it doesn't  _ feel  _ wrong, and I at first, I thought it was strictly a human thing, but I guess it isn't, b-because, well, I think, and I honestly hope you don't mind this, but ... I think I might love you."

For a few minutes, Chell just stood there, staring. She knew that they could feel pain (any doubts of that had been erased by Her haunting screams during the first core transfer) and more complex emotions than she would've ever thought they were capable of. 

But ... _ love? _   


Wheatley was silent. Maybe he had been too upfront with her about it. He didn't know much about  _ how _ love worked -- on the telly, humans always seemed to be in love, and sleeping next to different people, taking their clothes off for some reason, and cheating (though they never said what they were cheating  _ at  _ \-- perhaps card games?). Maybe she was offended. Maybe she was mad at him ...   


Until she sat down next to him, pulling him onto her lap, wrapping her arms around him and then he knew she wasn't angry. He gave a contented sigh.   


"I 'ove y-y-y-yyyou t-too, Wh-whhh-eeeeeeaat-y."   


It took him a moment to realize that it was Chell's voice. He lifted his lower shutter and nuzzled closer to her; she  _ would  _ learn to speak again.

 


	6. Rock-Bottom

The room was white.

Too white. It was like There. 

The first thing she tried to do was fire a portal, but -- no portal gun. Did She take it away? No, wait a minute,  _ She _ was in Aperture, not here, and the portal gun was in -- Didn't it fly off into space? Yeah, it did. Outer space. And She had let her and Wheatley go. Where was Wheatley, anyway? She hoped he didn't get into trouble. She didn't even know where she was.

Her left leg hurt. That was strange. 

In fact,  _ everything  _ hurt. But it was mostly her left leg.

Her scrambled mind struggled to put together the connections -- there had been a car, hadn't there? And it was on fire -- The car had run out of gas and then it was on the news ... no, no, no. Aperture was on the news. They had found that spacey core stuck to a satellite. She was known as Subject Omega. Then her apartment building had caught fire -- 

_ "What the hell? That thing  ** speaks.  ** With a British accent!" _

_ "Wha -- what are you doing to her? Are you going to hurt her? I won't let you hurt her, I'll have you know." A low growling noise emanated from the sphere, but the effect was less threatening than anticipated.  _

_ The voice laughed. "Look at that. Trying to protect her." _

It had been freezing.

"W-w-wheat?" she asked, but there was no answer. Several faces hovered above her. She screamed.

 

* * *

In the second week of December, there was a major snowstorm. Ten miles outside city limits, a car was found pulled off to the side of the road, its gas tank empty. Its single occupant, a young woman, was wearing only a thin, tattered jumpsuit for protection, and it was only the warmth from the mechanical sphere clutched in her arms that saved her from dying of hypothermia.

It had been discovered after emergency dispatchers received a call; not at all unexpected during snowstorms. What made it strange was that when they traced the call, they never got further than a long-abandoned radio tower in the middle of a wheat field in Michigan's upper peninsula, hundreds of miles away. 

And the call definitely hadn't been placed by a human.

 

* * *

Three weeks later, Chell Johnson, age 25, sat on the carpeted floor of a playroom in a complex of buildings that was known to most people as the "loony bin." It wasn't an unpleasant place by any means; it was spacious, surrounded by several acres of woodland. The buildings were comfortable, bright and airy. Her left leg was burdened by a heavy plaster cast, and propped up on a pile of pillows, but she didn't seem to notice the awkwardness. She wasn't playing with any of the toys in the playroom; instead, she was busy concentrating on the pencil in her hand and the sketchpad in front of her. There were two unusual objects with her; a large, scorched metal box with hearts on the side, and the sphere. He watched her draw, his bright blue optic focusing between her and the paper, trying his hardest to stay silent.

"It's  _ Her,  _ isn't it?" he finally said, his vocal processors giving him a slightly breathless tone of voice. "That you're drawing there. Looks exactly like Her, I'll be honest." She looked at him and gave a small, near-imperceptible nod. Art therapy, the doctors had said, when she had requested a sketchpad and some pencils. She remembered the mysterious scrawlings and murals scattered throughout  _ there,  _ and it had inspired her to do the same. Although she had only been in the mental hospital for less than a week, she had already gone through several sketchpads.

Chell looked up towards a mirror embedded on the wall, the heavy, velvety curtains drawn back to the sides, her eyes straining to see if she could make out the shadowy forms on the other side. Nothing but her own reflection, dark hair scraped back to a clenching, viselike ponytail, her face uptight, paler than she ought to be.

It was actually a one-way mirror, hiding an observation area separate from the playroom. The whole setup reminded her a bit too much of  _ There _ , of the empty rooms overlooking the testchambers. Although she knew there were people inside, she couldn't see them or tell what they were doing. So she put her head down and continued drawing.

 

* * *

On the other side of the glass, three people sat.

"Look at them," one of them said, as Chell wrapped her arms around the sphere. "There has to be  _ some  _ level of trust between them. It would do more harm than good to separate them." 

"You're being sentimental again. The robot is a detriment to her mental wellbeing," one of the doctors said in a crisp voice. He was the oldest of the three; formerly a military officer (although the post-Combine earth had become a little kinder, a little more peaceful, it didn't completely usurp the need for armed forces), and seemingly in charge ensuring that nobody ever forgot that fact. "I recommend that they be separated immediately."

The first one sighed, adjusting her glasses, unable to resist speaking up despite her lower position and inexperience. She was the youngest there, only a few years out of university; not much older than Chell herself and perpetually finding herself getting mugs of coffee for the others. "Look, what she needs is  _ help,  _ not being torn away from the only sentient being that she feels safe with." 

It was true; when she had first been brought into the hospital, semi-conscious, Chell had been terrified of the doctors until they had brought the robot back in. The strange, blue-eyed, British-accented sphere nuzzled into her arm, telling her that it was all right, and she had calmed down enough to allow the doctors to work on setting her broken leg.

"Are you calling the robot  _ sentient? _ That's ridiculous."

"Not particularly ridiculous," the third piped up; the psychologist who had been assigned to Chell's case. He was in his late thirties, bearded, bespectacled, stocky and soft-spoken, with a quiet dignity surrounding him. "Haven't you been paying attention to the news as of late?"

"Aperture Science? What should I care about some extinct company and some robot they found floating around the moon?"

" _ That _ is Subject Omega. The robot is from Aperture. Would you believe that in nearly five centuries, nobody has been able to create AIs as sophisticated as Aperture Science Personality Spheres? They're arguably  _ alive. _ "

For a long moment, the room was silent.

"I'm still of the opinion that --" the first one began, and although his voice didn't waver, the tiniest flicker of doubt had entered it, his firm resolve abruptly having been chipped away.

"No. Unless  _ I  _ determine they are to be separated, they will not be separated." 

For the time being, the matter was settled.

 

* * *

It took Chell a while to sort out the order of events in her head. 

Just a few days after the thunderstorm, she had been informed that her workplace, a small insurance firm, had been acquired by a larger insurance firm, and she was one of the staff members who would be laid off. Although she was one of the best workers there, her job had become redundant. Three weeks later, the yellow-eyed, space-loving core that she had used in an attempt to corrupt Wheatley to put Her back in charge had been found stuck to a satellite, and suddenly everybody was interested in the long-defunct Aperture Science Laboratories. An overly-enterprising reporter had discovered Chell, a nearly-mute woman living in a medium-sized city, and "Subject Omega" (as she was known as, her real identity remaining anonymous) became the sole focus of the news for a while. For a while, Chell was afraid to take Wheatley outside, lest someone start asking her too many questions about the sphere that looked so similar to the yellow one. 

She never wanted this attention.

Especially not when she learned that she had been in stasis for hundreds of years. Although, on some intellectual level, she  _ knew  _ that she wouldn't ever find any of her family members (or the vague forms in her fragmented memories that she assumed were her family members) again, seeing it in the newspaper -- 437 years! -- had extinguished the tiny flicker of hope that she hadn't even realize existed. 

And, as though Fate had decided she hadn't had enough to deal with in the span of just under two months, her apartment building burnt to the ground in the middle of the night. She had awoken when the acrid, bitter smoke infiltrated her lungs, the smoldering heat just a few feet away from her head; Wheatley's questions about whether the walls were supposed to be bursting into flames had been reduced to small, whimpering noises upon realization of their danger. They (and the Cube, which Chell had grabbed on the way out) had both escaped in one piece.

Only one corner of her apartment remained intact. As soon as the firefighters had allowed her to, she had gone in, thrown all her books -- some of them still soggy from the efforts of quenching the hungry flames -- into a box, and carried it out to the car, where Wheatley and the Cube were waiting. The only clothes she had, other than the tattered nightgown she had on, were her old jumpsuit and Long-Fall Boots --  _ All Aperture technologies remained safely operational up to 4000 degrees Kelvin. _

She immediately began to drive.

Not to anywhere in particular; not to something, not away from something, just driving. She drove, and drove, and drove. Until she found herself out of gas on a nearly-empty highway during a fierce blizzard; snow blew all around the suddenly fragile-looking vehicle, forming a blanket of white in all directions. In an effort to determine where she was --  _ how  _ could she have been so stupid to allow herself to get lost, let alone allow the tank to run dry? -- she pulled on her frayed, old jumpsuit and got out of the car, her foot straightaway slipping on a slick patch of ice that was well-concealed by a thick layer of snow. She tried to catch herself, overbalanced, and gone down, her entire weight falling onto her left leg. Although she didn't hear the sharp crack of the bone in her lower leg as it snapped in half, she definitely  _ felt  _ it. She just barely managed to crawl back into the car, gritting her teeth and trying to ignore how the rough, jagged ends of the fracture rubbed against each other whenever she shifted the leg.

Then ... What had happened after that? It was cold, oh so cold. And, after a while, she had noticed that the rumblings and small vibrations of Wheatley's internal components gave off heat, and instinctually her arms had wrapped around the core, holding him tight against the curve of her torso, trying to absorb any warmth she could from his metal body. She forced herself to focus on the sound of his voice, knowing that if --  _ if  _ she allowed herself to go to sleep, it might be the last time. 

If she hadn't been so focused on trying to stay awake and alive, she might have heard the Cube actually speak, with a tiny, turret-like voice.

_ "Help is coming." _

 

* * *

If the doctors knew that Chell had scored in the 99th percentile for tenacity as a grade-schooler, they might not have been so surprised at her rapid progress in recovering the use of her broken leg. They could  _ never  _ convince her to use the wheelchair; even crutches proved to be a bit of a compromise for her. 

She also made good progress with speech therapy. A speech pathologist had come in and done some tests and explained to Chell that a brain injury -- not at all unlikely from the long-term stasis -- made it difficult for her to to get the words from her brain to her mouth. The notebook that she had long-used to communicate with Wheatley had given way to a small laptop, and eventually, hopefully, would be someday give way completely to her voice.

"You have a beautiful voice, luv," Wheatley had once said, looking up at her in adoration. "Quite lovely, really."

Chell knew that her voice, thick and choked and stumbling and near-indecipherable unless she pronounced each syllable slowly and deliberately, wasn't nearly as beautiful as he thought, but she didn't have the heart to correct him.

"T-thaaaaaaaaaank 'ou, Wheat-y," she had said, smiling down at him as he nuzzled into her side, giving her his one-optic smile.

Over the nine and a half weeks they were in the institution, they were both interviewed countless times; sometimes together, sometimes just Chell or the sphere. Five days a week a therapist came in to speak with Chell, and slowly she began to understand things; how being torn away from her family as a grade-schooler, locked away underground for centuries, then tested and nearly killed multiple times by two omnipotent supercomputers (though she would never tell them who the second one actually was, Wheatley's guilty-looking glances gave them more than an inkling what had happened) and finally, somehow, slipping through the cracks and never receiving any actual help when she returned back to society, had left her mentally and physically adult but still, in some aspects anyway, emotionally a child.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, they had said. It was the same as what Wheatley had called "shell-shock" that night, which had only been months ago, but may as well have been decades. For a species that had survived so long and populated the planet, a species that had won the Earth back from the Combine, the human psyche could be surprisingly frail. 

And Wheatley, the humanity sphere, didn't escape that. 

"It's hard to believe," the young, female doctor said, "but I think that robot's got depression."

Chell, who had overheard that particular conversation, didn't find herself as hard-pressed as the doctors to believe it; although Wheatley was a machine, made up of circuits and code, he was more than just that. 

He never had been a human. Unlike Her, he had been developed before Aperture Science had begun delving themselves into brain-mapping, the process of implanting a human mind into a computer. And yet, at times, he somehow seemed more human than Her, more human than some actual humans she had met.

Right now, she had to agree with the doctor. Despite trying to keep up a brave face for Chell's sake, the sorrow had crept in, masking his usually cheerful, bumbling, optimistic demeanor with a blanket of gloom. The weight of his guilt burdened him down, knowing that he, and he alone, had done these things to her, and that she was far too kind in allowing him her forgiveness.

And unlike an organic mind,  _ his _ memory banks didn't allow them to fade with time.

 

* * *

It was the dead of winter when Chell had entered the institution; the days short, dark, and bitterly cold. By the time her last week rolled around, the smell of spring was in the air; while the ground was still for the most part crusted with grimy snow, the warming temperatures began to thaw it into puddles, allowing the damp, flowery scent of the earth beneath to drift through. 

The last few weeks had been spent in a flurry of preparations and arrangements for Chell's return to the "real world," the world outside the insulating walls of the hospital. Although she was eager to return, she was also afraid of what lay outside.

She had decided not to return to the city; the hustle, stress, rat-race of day-to-day city life had just not been for her. Instead, she found a room in a boarding house in a small village tucked in the rolling hills a dozen-or-so miles away; with the advent of public transportation which had recently come to the region, though, it was less than an hour's bus ride to reach the city. Close, but not too close.

Chell enrolled part-time in the local community college to acquire the high school education that she had never gotten; she also got a part-time job in a local bakery. She liked the bakery; the white brick walls, browned by the oven heat, the sweet smell of the dough, the flour, bread and cake and rolls baking; the flour covering the floor and crusting the soles of her sneakers, working its way into the cracks in the leather; the roar and crackling warmth of the large oven whenever it was opened. There was something rather relaxing and therapeutic about forming the dough; pounding, rolling, twisting, shaping it into rolls, bread, pastries, whatever she was asked.

All in all, she was adjusting well; she was happy with her job, her life, and she was even making some new friends.

On the other hand, Wheatley wasn't. 

 

* * *

It had been nearly a month after she was discharged when Chell walked home from work to find Wheatley crying.

The moment she stepped in, she paused, hands gripping the doorframe, wondering if she had misheard things; a sound like that  _ shouldn't _ be emitting from Wheatley's vocal processors. It just wasn't possible. Her eyes darted around the room, before settling on him, still nestled into the folds of the blanket where she had left him that morning, and when she saw the way his frame trembled, she realized what the sound was. God, he was  _ sobbing _ .

She took a few quiet steps in his direction. His optic was squeezed tightly closed, but when she approached, the shutters opened to a narrow slit, the blue aperture barely visible behind it. Slowly, she put a hand on the top of his casing, looking down at him as they met eye-to-optic, her voice still slow and hesitant but clearer than before. "W-wheat-y? Are ... ou ... o-kay?"

"I --" His voice cracked, welling with tears that he didn't have, vocal processors simulating the sound of shaky, deep breathing. "I'm just fine, luv. Dandy as ever. No, don't you worry yourself a bit about ol' Wheatley. Absolutely, positively, 100% fine." His optic shifted downwards, his upper handlebar drooping a bit, voice becoming a bit smaller. "Nothing to worry 'bout here."

"Wheat-y ... you're ... a ... b-bad ... liar." She wrapped her arms around his spherical body, hefting its weight against her as she carried it to an old, tattered armchair, a thrift-store acquisition, and then cradled him in her lap. "W-what's ... wrong?"

He didn't respond; just closed his optic, pressing it against her belly, still shivering and making those soft sobbing noises.

Finally, he looked up, pale blue-gray meeting stratosphere blue as their gazes met. "Oh, luv... it ... it's just ..." He squeezed his optic shut momentarily, still shaking, until she put her hand on his casing, her fingers sliding in the space under his handlebars. Then she began to rub; small, circular movements with her fingers. It took a while, but the sobbing subsided, and their gazes met again. "It -- it's ... I was so bossy and monstrous, a proper maniac, a-and you ... well, you're  _ not.  _ You never took over the facility, never tried to kill me, never -- you very well could've left me to rust i-in that field, o-or s-stomped on me, thrown me in a ditch, held me under water, smashed me to bits. B-but you never did ... I mean -- I -- I wish I could take it all back, honestly, j-just escaped, the two of us, but ... I didn't ... didn't want -- A-and then, when ... after all of  _ that,  _ you -- I -- I don't know h-how you can even stand to  _ look  _ at me, lady. A monster, that's all I am, a-and you -- you're brilliant, strong, lovely, really, if I'm honest ... and I don't deserve you, don't deserve y-your forgiveness, not one bloody nano-ounce, nope, not at all." 

His optic shrunk a bit, shifting downwards again as she pulled him closer to her. Her sweater pressed against his speaker, muffling his next words. "I don't  _ belong  _ out here, luv, not like you. You're a human, yeah? And you do all these human-y things, eat, sleep, poop... um... other human-y things, deer, birds ... you get my point, don't you? I'm rambling again, sorry about that, but to the point, the point is ... I'm a  _ machine _ . An Aperture device. A-and --"

"Wheat-ley. Stop that."

His babbling instantly came to a standstill, his optic traveling up to meet her gaze again.

"Wheats ... please s-stop ... beating your-self up over ... this. What hap'd ... b-back ... there's ov-er with. A-and it's ... not ... com-plete-ley your fault.  _ I'm  _ t-the one w-who pushed ... the ... but-ton. That was  _ my  _ choice." She inhaled deeply, then exhaled, the sensations of speech still a bit foreign for her. "I s-should 'ave k-known it was ... not ... good idea. A-and while what you did was terri-ble, a-and I'm still a bit angry about it..." 

Another small pause as she shifted the bulk of the sphere in her arms, resting her chin atop his upper handlebar. "It's ... al-so not much a g-good idea to think ... too much 'bout ... what could've d-done differ-ently. We ... both have our re-grets, a-and we're both ... stronger people f-for it. Do ... do ou under-stand this?"

"Yes, luv... Comprehension level's a hundred percent. Absolutely no problem understanding."

"G-good." She smiled a bit, running her hand along the groove at the top of his hull, exhaling again; this was a longer speech than she was used to. "Anyways, we're f-friends, right? And friends ... stick to-geth-er. You've helped me m-more than ou t-think, even i-if you d-d-din't r-rea-lize it. A-and, even t-though I c-can't forget what h-h-hap-pened b-back there, I c-care about you an' d-don't want t'see you sad like this."

Their gazes met again.

Chell smiled a bit wider, smoothing her hand on the polished metal of his plating between his handlebar and his optic. 

And then she brought her face closer and kissed him on the top of his hull.

When she pulled away, his optic was substantially widened, the shutters entirely retracted into his casing. Finally, his lower shutter lifted in his unique, one-optic smile. "Wow..."

"Do ... ou feel any b-better now?" Chell asked, a mischievous glint in her eyes.

"W-what was that, luv? Was that --" His optic spun a few times as he accessed his database. "That was a kiss, wasn't it? That thing with your ... lips ... Yes? W-wow.... brilliant. Tremendous. That felt  _ really  _ good. Could you --  _ tiny _ suggestion here, no pressure, absolutely none whatsoever -- d-do that again sometime? No big rush. Of course, if you wanted to do it again right now, it'd be brilliant ..." His optic glowed a little brighter. "Up to you, of course."

So she did. When she pulled away the second time, he appeared to be rebooting.

 


	7. Itch

It had been a week and a half since the day she had found Wheatley crying. Chell was running late at the bakery, trying to get everything wrapped up before she went home for the weekend.

She always tended to run late on Fridays. It was the day she had her weekly appointment with the therapist, which was a round-trip bus ride to the city and back with an hour-long appointment sandwiched in between. Today, she had also made a special side-trip to the little bookstore. These days, juggling work, remedial classes in the nearby community college, moving to a new apartment, and appointments made her life busier than ever. 

"Chell! D'you need some help?"

She looked up to see her coworker and friend, Mel. It was difficult to believe that the two of them could have become friends so quickly; the two were like night and day. Chell's dark complexion stood in stark contrast to Mel's fair hair and skin; where Chell was quiet and reserved, Mel was bubbly and outgoing; where Chell tended to take everything very seriously, Mel would approach things with an air of flippancy. If one were to stereotype them, it would be the tomboy against the girly-girl, but fortunately, neither of them managed to fit into the clean-cut mold of an archetype.

The only things they really had in common was the same pale blue-gray of their eyes and their steely sense of determination. And yet, they had become friends.

In ways, Mel reminded her of Wheatley, and she had the feeling that the two of them would get along well. If only she had the courage to introduce them. She wasn't sure how to explain that her best friend was a robot, or what had happened between them back in Aperture.

_ Aperture. _ It wasn't any secret to either of them that Chell was Subject Omega, or that Mel was a direct descendant, by a dozen or so generations, of Anticitizen One. ("I don't like to brag too much about that," Mel had said about the subject when it had first come up. "I'd like to be known for who I am, not for being Gordon Freeman's how-many-greats-granddaughter.") Neither of them liked to talk about those subjects, and neither of them pried too much about them. 

"Some help would be 'ppre-ci-at-ed," Chell said, stumbling a bit on the last word. Mel immediately got to work, and in less than ten minutes both girls stumbled out the door into the cool evening air.

"Soooooo... any plans for the weekend?"

"N-not really."

"Oh, come on!  _ Nothing?  _ Isn't there ... y'know ... anybody you're keen on?" This wasn't the first time that Mel had asked her this; sometimes, Chell wasn't sure how she could put up with the girl.

"Nobody, real-ly."

"Seriously, I ought to fix you up with a date one of these days. Wouldn't that be romantic? Some tall, dark, handsome guy?" She giggled.

"No."

"Oh, come on! What can it hurt?" 

" _ Enough,  _ Mel." 

 

* * *

Wheatley seemed to be in a better mood than he had been when Chell walked in the door to the four-room apartment she had recently rented. "What have you got there, luv?" he asked, as Chell almost tripped over an unpacked box. "Another book? Books are tremendous things, you know, for reading and, ah, spending a day. Yes, reading books is a very good way to spend a day. We really ought to do it sometime soon, yeah? Just a suggestion, a little suggestion to keep in mind, no biggie, I know you've been busy and all, and I'm sure,  _ absolutely _ sure at that, that you've got better things to do with your time, but, if you don't mind, of course, wouldn't want to bother you if you  _ do  _ mind..."

"Y-yeah, another book." Chell smiled, put the bag on the coffee table, before lifting him onto the sofa beside her. As he nuzzled up against her side, his handlebars drooping in contented relaxation, she took the heavy, glossy-paged book out of the bag:  _ Half-Life,  _ by Marc Laidlaw. The pages fell open to a painting of a gargantuan, long-limbed creature called a Strider carefully picking its way over the rubble of the destroyed City 17. "It's ... a-bout the Sev-en Hour War and the C-combine thing and Gordon Freeman and the Re-sist-ance. People d-don't like t'talk much 'bout it and I was won-der-ing what they were so t-the bookstore lady found this for me." 

She continued flipping through the pages. There were many interesting things she hadn't known before; about the original Resonance Cascade, the ensuing military cleanup operation, eventually leading to the Black Mesa Research Facility being destroyed by a nuclear warhead. 

Three months later, the Combine had appeared on the planet.

In less than seven hours, Earth had surrendered.

Although the Combine had long been defeated, the sluglike 'advisors,' Shu'ulathoi, having been destroyed, the creatures of Xen had come to stay, adapting to Earth, filling in the niches in the ecosystem left behind by the extinction of several of Earth's native species.

Houndeyes, headcrabs, and chumtoads had become common household pets. Vortigaunts, an intelligent three-armed, bipedal species, had become peaceful co-habitants of the planet earth, albeite rarely seen; they were nomads, preferring to travel from place rather than settle down in one place for very long, some of them taking up their long-abandoned ancestral practice of antlion husbandry.

The Antlions themselves prevailed in sandy areas, the quickly-breeding, buglike aliens really only tolerated because of the valuable compounds they exuded. The main defense from them came from an elaborate network of 'thumpers' -- large machines that produced vibrations which confused the antlions' senses and drove them away -- dotted around the countryside, along with the aromatic pheropods from Antlion Guards, the scent of which tricked the common Antlions into not attacking humans who carried it. 

And the leeches were actually pretty tasty once you got past the initial disgust of eating an interdimensional alien.

As Chell continued turning the pages, learning new things, her eyes suddenly widened, breath catching in her throat. On the two-page spread was yet another picture; a somewhat grainy video still of a rust-colored ship, firmly wedged into the ice, protected from the fierce winds that were blustering the snow around it. It wasn't the ship itself, or the white block letters painted BOREALIS on the side that got her attention; it was the black logo on the container that did; the familiar circle, divided into wedges, and the words alongside it: 

APERTURE LABORATORIES.

She had discovered its drydock in the lower levels of the Enrichment Center, several kilometres underground _.  _ In any other place, Chell may have questioned as to why someone would put a drydock there, but in Aperture, where she had more important matters to worry about, surviving, escaping, not getting covered in repulsion gel, finding out where the bird had taken Her potato form, what to do about  _ him,  _ she didn't give it a second thought.

_ Run. Think. Shoot. Live. _

"I thought the book was about this Gordon bloke, not that ship," Wheatley said, narrowing his shutters in confusion, before dropping his voice to the tone he used when he told his 'scary' stories. "Still, you should've heard the stories about it! They were working on something  _ absolutely _ , tremendously important, but it just bloody  _ disappeared _ . Completely, along with part of the drydock, and everyone on board. Nobody knows what happened. Nobody knows where it went.  _ Terrifying _ ."

"G-guess it turned up there," Chell said with a frown.

Wheatley narrowed his optic in confusion. "I wouldn't know how. Most of the scientists-- ah, before  _ Her,  _ before She took over, obviously, because after She took over there weren't really too many scientists around the place-- but they hated the cold. Abso-bloody-lutely hated it. Their metal death traps would get covered by the white powder outside, and they'd all complain about digging them-- the death traps, not the white powder, no, no, I mean digging the white powder  _ away  _ from the death traps, just making that clear-- out, so I'd think it's highly unlikely they'd just sort of... just take off with the ship off to some distant area up in the Arctic, where it's freezing cold about ninety percent of the time. Actually, I'm not entirely sure if it  _ is  _ freezing cold, as I haven't been up there. No first-hand experience, to put it. But that's what my database says, so I'll assume that it's telling the truth. Though I wouldn't put it past the database to lie to ol' Wheatley. Just about everybody else did! But that's not the point there, the point is, that if it  _ was  _ freezing, I can't imagine them just taking the ship off to the Arctic. Also, it'd probably be fairly unpractical to take half the drydock as well, I'd imagine. Though perhaps, if they were bloody flippin' mad, they would, and I wouldn't put them being mad out of the question here, because there is a slight probability that they were. But, counting out the possibility that they  _ did  _ go mad, I'd rule it out as an option. I mean the scientists taking off with it. To the Arctic. Bloody cold."

Chell patted his hull, only half-listening to his babbling. It had been a long day, and sleep already tugged at the edge of her mind. She could already feel her eyelids drooping.

"Right. Babbling again. Sorry about that, luv. I just do that sometimes, don't I? I mean-- I don't mean to-- aggh. What I mean is that you've had a  _ long  _ day, and I'm fairly sure you're exhausted, and here I am, babbling about that ship. The ship that was in the book that was  _ supposed  _ to be about this Gordon bloke. But right. You're absolutely tired out, and I'm not helping here. Sooooo... I'll be quiet. Right. Absolutely quiet. Not a peep from ol' Wheatley here. A hundred percent quiet. Startingggggggggg.... now."

Already, Chell's breathing had turned slow and steady. With a start, he realized she was asleep. As gently as he could, he inched himself under her arm, pressing his optic plate against her sweater and letting out a contented sigh. Not for the first time, he could feel her heartbeat. It was strange how such a strong, brilliant woman could be so... fragile. Almost like a piece of glass. She couldn't be repaired in the same way he could be; although she had a self-repair functionality, she was far more delicate than him. It was a wonder she had survived all of Aperture's horrors, or Part Five--

_ "Stalemate Resolution Associate, please go press the Stalemate Resolution Button." _

_ "Go press the button! Go press it!" _

_ "Do not press that button!" _

_ "We're so close! Go press the button!" _

_ "Do not do it! I forbid you to press it!" _

_ Yet the lady ran over, fired a blue portal through the grate. A shimmering, swirling eddy of blue appeared on the one white tile on the ceiling of the Stalemate Resolution Annex. _

_ "Don't press that button!" No-- This had been a terrible idea-- The lady was going to  ** die  ** and it would be his fault-- _

_ No, she  ** had  ** to die, that little jumpsuited rat-- _

_ "Press it!" _

_ What did she do to him? _

_ "Don't press it! COME BACK!" _

_ She never caught him! She didn't even try! _

_ "Press the button!" _

_ She couldn't help it-- _

_ "No! Do not press that button!" _

_ She had already fired the orange portal to the bit of conversion gel underneath of him, the only bit that hadn't gotten washed away-- _

_ "Do NOT do it!" _

_ "Do press it!" _

_ He could feel the heat building up inside the facility as the nuclear reactor inched closer and closer to meltdown, the heat coursed through his circuits, and it  ** hurt.  ** Yet he couldn't-- _

_ She stepped through the portal. _

_ For a split-second, there was silence, then the panels lowered, and-- _

_ "PART FIVE! Booby-trap the stalemate button!" _

_ The lady flew across the room, crumpled, battered,  ** defeated. ** _

_ Then she slowly looked up at him. Although the rest of her face held no expression, no indication of any emotions, her pale blue eyes were filled with pain, fear, and... anger. How  ** dare  ** she be angry at him?! All  ** she  ** had done was boss him around, judging him silently, wouldn't even solve his tests for him, and  ** how dare she ** \-- _

_ "WHAT? Are you still alive?!" _

_ The lady was reaching for the portal gun. It wasn't like she could do a bloody thing with it. Just ten pounds of dead weight, like the rest of her. _

_ "You are joking. You have  ** got  ** to be kidding me! Well, I'm still in control--" _

_ The heat was still building up in his circuits, about to burst into flame any moment. _

_ Emergency reactor corrupt critical emergency stalemate temperature warning warning warning warning warning-- _

_ "AND I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO FIX THIS PLACE!" _

_ Her blood was pooling on the floor, the sprinkler system spreading the crimson out on the dark gray panels, her face contorted in pain as she reached for the portal device-- _

_ How could he have done this? _

_ No. It was  ** her  ** fault! _

_ If only she had solved the tests correctly they wouldn't-- _

_ "You had to play bloody cat and mouse, didn't you? While people were trying to work." _

_ She slowly looked up towards the ceiling, crumpling, revealing a full moon. Wheatley had never seen the moon before, and now the thing had no meaning for him. It was just another bloody human thing, like football and folklore and sure humans looked nice but they were all the same in the end, always looking down on you-- _

_ "Yes, well, now we're all going to pay the price. BECAUSE WE'RE ALL GOING TO BLOODY DIE." _

_ Nooooo, of course she didn't care, that rat, smugly silent as always, staring up at her oh-so-precious moon, just a big chunk of rock in the sky, nothing special about the bloody thing-- _

_ "Oh, brilliant, yeah. Take one last look at your precious human moon. Because it cannot help you now!" _

_ Her blood smeared the floor, her bare arms a strange, unnatural, color, but he didn't care, every inch of him hurt, he almost  ** wanted  ** to die, how could he have done this-- _

_ A flash of blue darted past his optic. For a long, long moment, everything became almost silent. The only sound he could hear was the lady's pained, unsteady breathing, and then suddenly there was roaring, a strong pull, he was being pulled from the chassis,  ** what the hell ** \-- _

_ What had the lady done?! _

_ She was being pulled towards him, and she grabbed onto his handlebars, her grip was so tight that it  ** hurt ** , he could feel her weight pulling at his sockets, and-- _

_ "AHH! SPACE!" _

_ They were in  ** space  ** and the lady was keeping him from pulling himself back in,  ** of course  ** the lady wouldn't let go, those meaty little fingers clinging onto him, nooooo, of  ** course  ** she wouldn't bloody let go, of course she wouldn't give him a chance to fix it-- _

_ "Let go! We're in space!" _

_ He could fix it-- he could fix it-- he could fix it-- she  ** had  ** to let go, but she  ** wouldn't,  ** that awful stubborn, clever girl, always-- _

_ "Let go! Let go! I'm still connected. I can pull myself in. I can still fix this!" _

In that moment, in the few picoseconds it had taken for his connection to the mainframe to be snatched away, for him to be free of its poisonous influence, it had all become clear.  _ He  _ had done it all.  _ He  _ had tried to kill her.  _ He  _ was telling her to die, to fly out into the void of space, and  _ bloody hell she couldn't breathe, he could survive but there was no way she could-- _

_ And then, just as he was the one keeping her flying out into space, suddenly the roles were reversed, and he was begging her not to let go, and there was no way she could hang on-- _

But she had. She had hung onto him, curling her body around him, until the moment when she had slumped down on the floor and he had crashed against the floor and his optic had broken in a strange broken kaleidoscope of colors and shapes, yet all he could focus on was the lady, her blood spreading out amongst the slate gray tiles, her blood was  _ everywhere,  _ and it was  _ his _ fault... No, she  _ couldn't  _ die...

 

* * *

Recovering from the unexpected influx of memories, he shivered a bit, inching just a little closer to her. The lady needed some rest and he didn't want to accidentally wake her up, but right now he wanted physical contact with her. No, he  _ needed  _ it, just like he needed her to test--

Wheatley froze. If he had teeth, they would have been chattering. It took him a few moments to remind himself that no, they weren't the same. It  _ was  _ the mainframe's fault, wasn't it?

Or was it  _ him? _

How could he live with himself if he ever hurt her again?

"Chell?" The word slipped out of his vocal processor before he could stop it. He froze momentarily, hoping she'd just stay asleep--

"Hmm?" He felt her shifting her arms, wrapping them around him so he wouldn't fall onto the floor as she lifted herself back up to a sitting position. "D-d-did... I fall 'sleep?"

"No! I mean-- No, what I mean is  _ yes,  _ you did fall asleep there for a bit, but it isn't a problem. Not at all. Absolutely not a problem whatsoever. You're the boss around here, you pay the rent, you've had a long day, you're in most likelihood bloody exhausted, and if you very well decide you want to take a nap I'm not going to stop you. No-- agh, I-- what I mean, I didn't mean to sound ungrateful there, it's just that-- yes, you did fall asleep there, a-and I was-- I--"

"W-wheats, what is it?" Her tone, while firm, held no trace of impatience or irritation. 

Wheatley's optic shrunk to the size of a dime as he looked up at her. He emitted a noise similar to that of a human clearing their throat, a hint of nervousness noticeable in his voice. "Um... nothing! Nothing at all, luv. Just-- Thinking. About things. Good things, brilliant things, right? Like how we both survived and made it out here and made a life for ourselves-- well, it's more that  _ you  _ made a life for us, I didn't-- And you did the surviving as well, I mean, I don't have to worry so much about my own survival, I'm practically immortal, and you're absolutely  _ brilliant  _ at the whole survival thing, A+, tremendous at it, but-- I mean, I-- You did all the work, lady, and I'm proud of you. Very proud. And-- hmm-- ah, the weather! Right. It's lovely today, isn't it!" His gaze turned towards the window, where dark clouds were already moving in. "...Well, I  _ thought  _ it was lovely, but it appears that the weather itself disagrees with me. Not that I'm complaining, or that I intend to sound like I'm complaining. I've got nothing to complain about, have I?"

"W-wheat-ley."

"Yes, luv?"

"Do-- do you 'member when I... told you that y-you were a... bad liar?"

"Right. Of course I do. Right here in the memory banks. Not erased. Haven't erased it, is what I mean. Accidentally or purposefully. I can bring it up any time I'd like. Though I'll just take a quick guess here-- just speculating, don't take it personally-- and, ah, assume that there's a reason you want me to remember this? I mean, what I mean is, you're the type of lady who doesn't exactly do things for  _ no  _ reason, though with humans, it can be hard to tell sometimes-- so if you  _ don't  _ have a reason, I'm not going to judge you on that. But right. To the point. Right to the point, which is remembering. Remembering when you told me I was a bad liar."

"Y-you still are."

Chell rested her chin against his upper handlebar. She wanted to help him, but as long as he continued remaining so... evasive, so secretive, she couldn't really do a damn thing. No matter how hard he tried to cover up his feelings, he was pretty much transparent. 

It wasn't doing either of them any good.

"Right. You're right, lady. I-- I am a bad liar, aren't I? I mean, luv-- Chell-- I-- I don't know-- What I mean is, what-- What if I hurt you again? I don't  _ want  _ to hurt you, I want to avoid that  _ very  _ much, and don't get me wrong, I have no bloody intention of wanting to hurt you, but-- I mean, with part five-- If I were you, luv, in the hypothetical situation in which the roles were reversed, and I was the human test subject with the massive brain damage and you were the personality core that'd gone mad and tried to kill me, I would-- I-- I would have just thrown you in a ditch or something. Left you to rot. Well, rust, actually, as I can't really rot, and anyways, my casing is actually rustproofed, so I can't really rust either, so I probably would just be sitting there, absolutely unable to move-- But that's not-- I'm going off-track again, aren't I? But what I'm saying is you  _ didn't  _ do that, and-- There's no reason for me to complain, really, I'm truly grateful for all you've done for me,  _ very  _ grateful here, but I-- It wasn't the mainframe, luv. It was me, and-- What if something happens and-- and-- I-- I don't know what I'd do if-- I--"

"Wheatley."

"Y-yes, luv?"

"I-if you hurt me again, I'll..." She paused for a moment, thinking. "I'll flush you down the toilet."

For a few moments, Wheatley just blinked in surprise,  _ plink, plink.  _ Then he gave a nervous chuckle and his faceplate pulled up into a smile. "That's be rather unpleasant, wouldn't it? I mean for me, being the one flushed down the toilet, and not you, who'd be doing the flushing. Literally down the toilet, as in not figuratively, but really, actually down the toilet. Actually, mate, I don't even think I'd  _ fit  _ in the toilet, but-- Agh, no, actually I-- I'd better not say any more or you'll come up with something even bloody worse, because what I mean is, you're clever enough that you could think of something that's probably far more ingenious if you'd wanted to, clever woman that you are, but right. I'll do my best to behave myself here. Absolutely do  _ not  _ want to be flushed down the toilet. Or worse. I would  _ very  _ much like to avoid that."

"That's what I thought," Chell said, then gave a light shove to his optic plate.

 

* * *

The next day was Saturday, and Chell didn't have work. She also didn't have to run any errands, so after doing a modest amount of unpacking (just enough that she felt like she got something done), she settled down to spend the day reading.

Wheatley, however, was somewhat jittery. He kept fidgeting, shifting his plates, as though trying to get to a comfortable position. Every once in a while he would manage keep himself still, only to start squirming again within moments. However, it wasn't until he had nearly fallen onto the floor (only her quick reaction prevented the painful impact, which was quickly followed by a rapid stream of 'thank yous') that Chell wondered if something was wrong.

She hadn't realized she had actually said it out loud until he had responded. "Mostly right as rain. Never understood that term really, must be another human thing, as I'd very much like to  _ avoid  _ the rain, but you're a human and don't have to so-- ah, but I'm pretty good overall. But other than that, there's this-- uh, what I mean here, don't get this mistaken, lady, but there's kind of a, uhh-- sort of--  _ itch,  _ you know? Not like-- agh, not like it was back there, not bloody testing, but what I mean is-- I don't want to bother you, but-- It feels like something's just sort of--  _ sticking _ in there, and if you don't mind-- I understand if you  _ do  _ mind, I can live with it, but I'm certainly hoping you're not-- what I mean, is, I don't mean to be ungrateful or rude or anything, honestly, but it-- I sort of, I mean-- well, you weren't feeling too brilliant most of the winter, right? Definitely not at your best. So I can't exactly blame you, but the regular maintenance, I mean-- What I'm talking about is, you haven't really checked my poles lately, have you? I'm not trying to blame you for anything, you obviously had much, much more important things to worry about, such as-- rrrrrrrgh, there I go, rambling on again, and you're probably thinking to yourself, 'Wheatley, get to the damn point, will ya?' But what I mean is-- I mean, they're sort of-- I mean, what I mean is, they sort of need to be un-sticked. Last time it happened you had this sort of awful smelly stuff you sprayed in there and it un-sticked my poles and I felt better, so I was thinking, perhaps... you could do it again? I-if you don't mind?"

"O-of course I don't mind," she said, lightly scratching the top of his hull. "Wheatley, y-you're... not a bother at all. I'll go... f-find some."

After more than a half-hour of rummaging through the still-unpacked boxes, searching, she came up with the familiar blue-and-yellow can. It felt strangely light, though, and when she pressed the nozzle to spray some all that came out was a  _ hiss  _ of air. 

She got to her feet, walked back over to the sofa, and sat beside Wheatley. "S-s-sorry, Wheats, but the can's empty."

"No, luv, it's quite all right. Can't blame you for trying, it--" He suddenly stopped mid-sentence, his voice dissolving into static, the blue in his optic dimming a bit. After a moment that felt like an eternity, he spoke again, his voice a little slower, laced with static. "Rrrrright. J-just-- just let me catch my breath here. Don't you worry 'bout me, luv, I'm--" 

There was a painful grinding noise within him as he shifted his face plate upwards to meet her gaze. The blue honeycomb of his optic was no more than a pinprick as he visibly flinched, letting out a low groan.

"Actually, I've changed my opinion on this. I most definitely, quite sure about this, am  _ not  _ fine. To tell you the truth, it--" The painful grinding noise turned into a less grating, but still alarming clanking noise, the noise of two pieces of metal striking against each other. "Aghhhk! I-- It-- S-something's let go, a-and I--" 

Chell put a steadying hand on the side of his hull, and he half-closed his optic, shaking slightly. 

"H-hold on... I'm... taking a look," she said as she carefully turned him onto his side. He didn't say anything, only just let out a low groan, his entire frame trembling. Through the gap on his side, she could see what was wrong: Something, possibly his fidgeting, had managed to dislodge one of the poles from the sockets. His internals, all pushed out of place by the loosened pole, were a painful-looking mess.

She narrowed her eyes. "W-wheatley? Can you... keep still for me?"

"I-- I'll try my best, luv. Honest." His voice rasped and a long shudder went through him.

Taking care not to jar him, Chell removed a small penlight from her jeans pocket and shined it into the side of his casing. Her palms sweated a bit; she hadn't had to repair him since... well, it had been a while, and she was nervous. 

Could she reach her finger in and somehow push the pole back into place without hurting him more? She decided to try. Sticking the penlight in her mouth and pressing her left hand against his optic plate to keep him steady, she slowly reached her right hand in-- almost got it--

He recoiled. There was a crack as two of the poles snapped together, trapping her finger in between. Chell yanked her hand back, accidentally causing the sphere to roll onto the floor with a garbled, static-filled shriek of pain. Not paying the least attention to her red, now-swollen, possibly broken finger, she scooped him back up and held him close to her body.

"Agh-- you, you  _ dropped  _ me, lady!" His voice was shrill, and Chell winced a bit at his shrieking. "Y-you  _ dropped  _ me, and it bloody  _ hurt _ , and of course-- of course you wouldn't give ol' Wheatley a care in the world do you?! You know what you are, lady? Selfish, absolutely s-selfish at that and--"

A tight ball of anger formed in Chell's stomach, but she forced herself to remain silent. Careful not to reveal any sort of emotion, she calmly placed him on the sofa and left him as she headed off to her own room.

"Chell? Chell! P-please come back! Please! I-- I didn't mean it! Honestly I--"

She ignored him.

 

* * *

Chell paced around her small bedroom for over an hour, ignoring the sphere's shuddering apologies and tearful pleads to come back. The Cube, which usually hummed happily at her presence, was oddly silent. She had been trying to  _ fix  _ him and if he was going to be ungrateful for it, he could very well just deal with the pain. 

The index finger on her right hand was now very swollen and a somewhat strange shade of purple. She headed to the washroom, used her left hand to turn on the sink faucet, and held the finger under the ice-cold water until the rest of the hand turned numb. Still, her injured finger throbbed. For a moment, she considered getting a pack of ice from the freezer, but to do that--

No. She didn't want to see him. She'd just deal with the pain. The tight ball of anger still clenched her stomach.

 

* * *

An hour and a half later, her compassion overcame her stubbornness and she once again headed out to the living room to see Wheatley. She worried he was offline, and then the slightest bit of blue peeked out as he cracked his optic shutters open. 

"Wheatley." Her voice was soft and she placed the lightest of touches against the side of his casing with her left hand. It was near-scalding, and she almost jerked her hand away. "Wheatley, you're... over-heat-ing."

He didn't respond. He didn't even seem to react.

"W-wheat...ley?"

 


	8. Troubleshooting

Chell looked down at the overheating, non-responsive core, struggling to keep herself together. Ignoring the excruciating pain in her finger, she carefully rolled him over, revealing the small panel.  _ MANUAL SHUTDOWN.  _ She didn't know what else she could do.

Wheatley suddenly wriggled in her arms, the loosened poles inside him banging against each other with a hollow ringing noise. Even through the heat building in his systems and the now somewhat-dulled haze of pain and shock that accompanied it, his self-preservation programming was telling him to not allow the lady to turn him off. But he felt weak, and the conscious part of him knew he could trust her, even if she had been angry at him just a few hours ago--

_ No, don't let her! _

He barely felt her finger on the switch as he allowed himself to fall into oblivion.

 

* * *

For more than an hour, Chell sat there on the sofa, holding the now-cool, offline shell of the sphere close to her, at a loss of what to do. In the moments before she had turned him off, he had quit struggling and gone deathly still. 

Had she lost him? Had the small conductive wires that made up his processors heated up to the point where they melted, fusing into each other, short-circuiting him beyond repair? 

Just why had she stalked off angrily, leaving the damaged core alone on the sofa? She had been angry at him. For what? For snapping at her when she had dropped him? 

It all didn't make much sense now.

After a while, she decided that sitting around moping wasn't going to help anything, so she got up to find her copy of the  _ Aperture Science Personality Construct Maintenance and Repair Manual, Version 14.3.  _ Its pages were still wrinkled and stiff from the water damage it had sustained when her apartment building had burned down last fall, but it still weighed a ton. She flipped to the index in the back.  _ O... _ Overheating... Page 1442.

Some of the pages were stuck together and she had to take extra care not to tear the fragile pages, but she eventually found page 1442. However, it was practically unreadable; the ink had smudged and smeared to the point where the individual words were illegible. 

She hurled the heavy book against the wall. When it hit the floor, half-open, its spine broken by its own weight, she curled up, shaking. The tight ball of anger that had settled at the bottom of her stomach had turned into a physical pain, the type of pain that gnawed, eating away at her.

After what must have been only a few minutes but felt like an hour or two, she was aware of a high-pitched yipping noise. Slowly, she raised her head, looking out the front window. At first she didn't see anything, then somebody ran by.

"Tesla! No! No digging in other people's gardens!"

The yipping became a whine. Chell got to her feet, cracking open the the door to see what was going on. The young woman was currently trying to untangle herself from a leash, onto which was harnessed a three-legged, yellow-green animal with electric-blue tiger stripes and one giant, insect-like eye on its front.

Although Chell struggled to remember what exactly this one was-- it was definitely one of the xenotheric species described in the book-- whatever this thing was, it was making a lovely mess of her front yard.

"Ahh! Chell, can you help me here? Tesla's got this thing wrapped around my legs and he--"

It was Mel. Chell walked over, grabbing the houndeye-- that's what it was! a houndeye-- by the harness, unclipping the lead. Within moments everything was unraveled, and Tesla, deciding he'd had enough of everything, flopped down onto his side for a nap.

"Your finger's swollen." Mel said it matter-of-factly, and when Chell looked down at her hand she noticed it looked worse than before. In all her worry, she had managed to forget about her pain, but now that she noticed it, a dull throbbing began in the base of the finger, spreading throughout her hand, up her right arm, and into her shoulder. She straightened herself, although she felt like the ground beneath her was swaying, and as a cold sweat broke on her forehead and she almost tripped over her own feet trying to get back into the house.

"Are you all right?" Mel asked, but the words seemed far away to Chell.

"J-j-just-- just give a-- mo-ment." Chell rushed back into the house, the cooler air somewhat a relief after the mugginess outside, and sank down onto the sofa. The gnawing pain in her stomach grew worse at the sight of the sphere tipping over onto its side. Mel, carrying the now-sleeping Tesla under one arm, followed her in. 

"What's that?" Mel asked the moment she had spotted Wheatley, and with a heavy heart and a stammer in her voice, Chell explained everything. 

_ Everything,  _ Aperture included. 

As she held her knees against her stomach, the pain forming into an awful nausea, Tesla nuzzled against her arm, whining sympathetically.

"And now your robot friend overheated and you don't know how to fix him?" Mel asked. 

"E-e-exact-ly."

"Well, I don't mean to brag or anything, but I do know a thing or two about fixing robots myself. I  _ ought  _ to, seeing as I actually have a robot myself. Remind me to introduce him at some poi-- Tesla, get back here!" 

The houndeye raised his back leg, and Mel quickly scooped him up to take him outside.

"Anyways, as I was trying to say--" Mel glanced at Tesla, who, despite having a face consisting of just a giant compound eye, managed to actually look  _ sheepish--  _ "I could see what I could do about fixing your robot up."

"R-r-real...ly?"

"Yup." She was already reaching for the robot, though Chell was reluctant to release her grip on him. "So long as you get  _ yourself  _ to the emergency clinic. That finger doesn't look too great."

 

* * *

The doctor at the emergency clinic asked her about five million questions and then took about five million X-rays of her broken finger before splinting it to her other finger to keep it straight.

Four to six weeks to heal; and, unless the manager at the bakery moved her to the cash, which was unlikely due to her poor speech, that meant no pay for those four to six weeks. She had savings in her bank account, but between living expenses as she searched for a job, the cost of relocating out of the city, and the weekly appointments with the therapist, they had shrunk to a relatively small fraction of what they once were. 

Sure, she  _ could  _ afford to dip into them a bit more, but she hated to do that. Not to mention the fact that she hated just sitting around the house doing nothing.

But those were worries for later. For the moment, her main concern was Wheatley.

 

* * *

Everything about Mel's house said 'wealthy'; from the manicured lawn, which didn't at all resemble Chell's own dandelion-choked yard, to the tall, imposing iron fences surrounding it. Nor did the house itself, an enormous brick structure, remind her of the various houses she had lived in; buildings with chipped paint and rotting windowframes. 

Mel's house was the type of place you didn't approach unless you were wearing your best clothes, and Chell's stomach tightened as she walked through the iron gates and up the long driveway.

Was this such a good idea? Trusting Wheatley to a girl she had only known for such a short time?

She hadn't thought her stomach could get any worse than it already was, but it contracted painfully; her morning's breakfast turned sour and rancid, and she wondered why she hadn't told the doctor about her upset stomach--

Oh, right, she was too busy worrying about her job.

When she reached the heavy oak doors, they swung open before she could even reach up to ring the doorbell. The housekeeper, a tall, haggard woman who looked down her nose at Chell, led her into the front parlor, all very formal, all very stiff.

It was just another test, Chell tried to tell herself. Figure out how to solve it, and she'd be in the clear, at least until the next test. But, another part of her mind reasoned, real life  _ wasn't  _ like a test. A test was designed to be solved. Life wasn't. After a while, she decided not to think too much more about these sorts of philosophical conundrums and get back to the goddamned story.

When Mel came into the room, she was, to be cliche, a breath of fresh air. "Oh, ignore  _ her,"  _ she said, motioning to the housekeeper. "Let's go."

 

* * *

Three hours later, Chell was back home, sitting on the couch, holding the now-repaired Wheatley. She reached for the switch--

Shaking, her hand dropped as she realized that she was  _ afraid _ to turn him back on.

So she didn't. For the next week and a half, he remained offline. At nights, she would pull the robot close to her, but the nightmares would still plague her sleep, the ones that left her waking up in cold sweats and being unable to go back to sleep. 

She couldn't go to work, her broken finger ached, and the dull pain that remained in her stomach intensified throughout the week. On Thursday, she once again checked herself into the emergency clinic, where the doctor poked and prodded at her and then gave her a prescription for a medication she couldn't spare the money for.

At home, Chell had to force herself to try to have something for supper, but her appetite was nonexistent. After a while, she dragged herself into the bathroom to promptly evacuate the contents of her stomach, before curling up on the floor, pressing her cheek against the cool tiles of the floor.

When she finally opened her eyes again, it was dark. Disoriented and groggy, she pushed herself up to a sitting position, leaning against the bathroom cabinet, breathing hard. There was the awful taste of vomit lingering at the back of her throat and she shivered as the sweat evaporated from her skin.

As she pulled herself to her feet, the floor seemed to sway beneath her. Chell winced, gripping onto the cabinet, waiting for the feeling to pass. Once it did, she splashed some cold water on her face, forcing herself to not flinch at the unpleasant feeling. She looked at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were sunken, her face pale, her hair plastered to her face. 

Then she headed back to the living room and turned on Wheatley. Momentarily, her finger had hovered over the switch, her stomach contracting, turning in on itself. Before she could reconsider, she pushed it to the on position, then pushed the covering back into place.

For what appeared to be the longest moment of her life (at least at that present time), there was silence, before the gentle  _ whirrrrr  _ of the fans clicked to life and the core slowly came online. His eyelids cracked open to reveal the familiar stratosphere-blue optic, which quickly darted around before it settled onto her. He seemed to relax then, his handlebars unbracing themselves and his optic widening a bit more.

"W-what happened...?" Wheatley's voice was groggy as he tried to reorient himself, blinking several times. "Luv? Is-- is that you?"

She tried to say something, but she was too choked up to say a word. So instead, she just pulled him a little closer, wondering if somehow he knew her innermost thoughts; how terrible she felt from allowing him to overheat. When they both had left Aperture, it was with the implicit promise that they would both take care of each other, and she had let him down.

"Right. It  _ is  _ you. Don't know why I would think otherwise." He pressed himself against her side, blinking. "How-- how long have I been out? The last thing I remember was that I wasn't feeling too brilliantly. In fact, I might say I was overheating. Is that what happened, luv?" Without waiting for her to answer, he continued on. "Right. Well, the old poles don't feel so stiff now--" to demonstrate this, he rolled his optic plate straight around "--b-but-- oh, luv, don't cry. Please. There's no need to do that. Honestly."

Chell didn't trust herself to say anything. She blinked a few times, willing away the hot, salty tears, but the week had left her exhausted and she couldn't summon up the energy to do so. 

"Right. You're not about to stop, are you? It-- agh, it's all right. But, please, if there's anything I can do-- anything at all, even though I'm just a sphere-- just tell me, luv. Or try to communicate it somehow, seeing as you're not too talkative today. Not that it's a problem, I don't mean to imply that there is, but it's-- what I mean is, I'm not the brightest core around, am I? Even though-- I mean I don't like to  _ think  _ about that, but there you go. Little old Wheatley, the moron. That's what I am. A bloody moron. What I'm saying here, though-- I'll admit I did go off-track there, that's a particularly unfortunate habit of mine-- is that for me, being the moron I am, it's-- I can't read your mind, luv, not as well as you can read mine. Not actual,  _ literal  _ mind-reading, but more of the-- understanding things even when I don't say them out loud. I mean, it's probably more the fact that you're so stoic-- and I'm not. The complete opposite of stoic, you would say. Night and day, right? So, my lack of stoic-ness-- that's sort of a messy way to put it, but my vocabulary isn't  _ quite  _ that extensive-- means you can read my mind, once again, not literally, but you're able to read it more easily. But-- agh, there I go again, completely off the tracks again, that's me Achilles heel right there, going off-track. Right, where was I? Ahem. What I've been trying to say here for the last few minutes is that-- luv, I  _ want  _ to help you. I mean help you feel better. Happier. Calmer. Lovely, pleasant feelings. But I have no bloody clue where to start with this."

Chell looked at him, eyes glistening. It was hard to believe that just mere days ago this was the same Wheatley that had called her selfish. She didn't know whether she could trust him once again; whether he would turn on her again when things didn't go his way.

Wheatley looked up at her, blinking.  _ Plink. Plink. _

Not really thinking, she gave a light pat to his hull, only to yank her hand away when she brushed her broken finger against the metal of his hull. The pain tore through her hand, spreading up her arm once again. 

She got up, suddenly deciding to head out to the kitchen to get a drink. The ground swayed under her feet. She fell.

 

* * *

"...C-chell? That-- I'm  _ fairly  _ sure that isn't the most convenient place to take a nap, now, is it? Certainly not as comfy as your old bed or even the couch, in the event that you're that tired. But definitely not the floor-- but right. You're the boss around here. It's completely up to you whether you want to sleep on the floor or not. All I'm saying is that, if I were human-- not that I'd  _ want  _ to actually be one, even though the idea of having limbs definitely makes me reconsider on occasion-- but in the situation where I was a human, I highly doubt  _ I _ would want to sleep on the floor myself."

Chell didn't move. At times, she was hard to understand. Not that he would change anything about her for the world, but he certainly wouldn't mind if she became a little less stoic and a little less stubborn. 

As he watched her closer, he noticed there was something strange about her. He couldn't be positively sure-- after all, he  _ did  _ have to admit he wasn't as brilliant as he'd like to be-- but he was fairly sure that last time Chell had slept, he had seen her chest rising and falling.

It didn't seem to be doing that now.

"...Luv? Are you all right? Because I'm not-- " He leaned forward, the aperture of his optic narrowing a bit as he tried to get a closer look at her. "No, this-- all right. You're not actually asleep, are you? Not that I mean you're awake, but that sort of sleep that's not-sleep and--  _ oh god--" _

He tried not to panic, tried not to think about There, all of the scientists and test subjects laying still, never to move again--

"R-right. Coming down. Right now. Don't move-- no, agh, you're not-- bloody, there's no time for this--" His weight sunk down into the sofa's cushions, and it was an effort to scoot himself ahead with the handlebars, quickly realizing that it wasn't  _ fast enough--  _

He settled himself. "Right. Emergency. This is an emergency. A  _ real  _ emergency. No time to be going off-track. Three, two--"

He threw himself forward, rolling onto the floor with a clunk.

"O-oww. One." The moment his internal gyros stopped spinning around, he was slowly, awkwardly shuffle-scooting his way over to her, wishing that he could-- just for this moment-- somehow take up the imaginary offer of becoming human and gaining the use of limbs. "C-chell? Please. Just get up. Please!" He leaned his core against her, trying to push her over, in some attempt to get her up. 

After a few seconds, her chest once again rose, then fell. He nudged himself against her arm, in some attempt to encourage the poor girl to keep breathing. "Yes! That's it. Good. Just keep breathing, luv, like you're doing there. Don't stop, all right? Wouldn't want you to stop. Breathing is very important if we want you to keep on living. Which I do. And I'll presume on your behalf, since you're unable to answer me at the moment, that you want to keep on living as well. Because staying alive is the ideal thing to do in this situation. Wouldn't want you to die." 

Since he didn't dare shift his focus away from her to check the time (Wheatley was  _ not  _ good at multitasking), he wasn't really sure how long it had been before she shifted. Her arm stretched out, bumping into him.

"W-wheat...?" Her voice was small and quiet and she didn't have the strength to even finish the word.

"Shhh, take it easy. Just rest a bit, all right, lady? Wouldn't want you to fall down again. That wouldn't be too pleasant for  _ either  _ of us. So my recommendation to you is to just lay here for a bit, at least until you feel well enough to get up." 

Chell was already attempting to get up.  _ Bloody, she was going to-- _

" _ CHELL! _ "

He never realized he had yelled it until she looked at him, confused. Once he had gotten her attention, he didn't want to lose it.

" _ Sit down.  _ Right now. Or you're going to fall and land on your bloody head. On the floor. It could split like a melon-- your head, not the floor, though the floor might split too-- and you absolutely do  _ not  _ want that to happen. And neither do I."

She struggled to stand for a few more moments, before allowing herself to sink back down to the floor; he could swear he could almost see a sense of relief on her face.

"Good." He let his voice soften a bit as he gazed up at her. "Just rest for a bit, luv, until you feel well enough to get up. I-- I just don't want you to hurt yourself. I don't know what I'd do if you--" He paused, shivering. "Never mind. Just never mind that. It wasn't important. Nothing you ought to worry about. Just take care of yourself, all right? Please? I just-- I--" 

He couldn't bring himself to finish the rest of the sentence.

"R-right. Ahem. So, um, well here's an idea. Right. Let's do some troubleshooting, shall we? Right. Troubleshooting. Trou-ble-shoot-ing. Rather useful word to have in the ol' vocabulary, isn't it? Classic word there. Solving problems. Which is what we're doing here. Well, you're breathing, which is the main priority here. Wouldn't want you to not be breathing, as I'm fairly sure here that breathing is a prerequisite to being alive. Unless you're a fish or something, which you're not, but for  _ humans  _ breathing is essential. So we don't want you to stop breathing. Right. So." He squinted a bit, shaking his optic plate. "Troubleshooting. That's what we were doing. You're breathing. Brilliant job at that. Just carry on with it the way you're doing. Next up-- hmmm-- what was it again?"

"W-wheatley....?"

"What's the matter, luv?"

"W...what... what happened?"

All Chell knew is that she had somehow ended up on the floor, that she had a massive headache, and that Wheatley was babbling on about her breathing, and frankly...She was scared, but she couldn't--

She paused for a moment. Just  _ why  _ couldn't she let him know?

Well, he would worry too much--

Wouldn't keeping it from him worry him more?

But she couldn't trust--

Yes, she could. Even through what they had gone through the other day, he was  _ not  _ the same Wheatley she had left the facility with.

Eventually, she ran out of excuses and could only come to one conclusion: She was hurting herself with her own stubbornness.

"Right. You got up for some reason. I'm not sure of the reason myself, because you didn't make any attempt to communicate it--Though, you  _ might  _ have, and I just missed it, in that case it's my fault-- but right. You got up, walked a couple steps, and stepped on one of those boxes you have laying about the place. Stepped right onto it, with your foot. And fell. Right onto the floor. Hit your head on the coffee table too."

Chell winced and rubbed her head. She pulled it away. At least there wasn't any blood, she told herself, but it didn't make her feel any better.

"W-wheatley...?" She knew her voice sounded weak and pathetic, but maybe this once she could let herself be just that. After all, it wasn't like any slip of emotion could lead to her death. She was far away from There. "I-- I'm--scared."

There. She had admitted it.

Why didn't she  _ feel  _ any different?

No, it wasn't that simple. Just doing it  _ once  _ didn't mean much. And it would take time and effort and a lot of hurting. And the alternative would be easier: simply living like she had always done, holding a crucial part of herself back, forming a glass wall around herself.

And that wasn't something she wanted to do, if only to try to prevent that awful pain in her stomach from flaring up when she was stressed; although that wasn't the  _ only  _ reason, it was the main one.

She was so involved in her own thoughts that she didn't even notice Wheatley inching himself closer to her face.

"Chell? Is it all right if I--" He pressed his optic shutter against her face, and it took her a moment to realize that this was his version of a kiss. "If that makes you feel any better there. Less scared. A-and I know that when I was scared, you held me. I can't particularly do the  _ holding  _ part, having no limbs--another one of my Achille's heels, I know, but maybe if you did the holding part it'd be close enough."

Her head still hurting, she pulled herself to a sitting position, holding him in her lap. She wanted to talk to him, but she was too exhausted to form the words. She wondered if he really knew how much she loved him. 

"Lady? You're... overheating. Burning right up. Unless that's normal for humans, but I'm fairly sure it isn't."

 

* * *

It was the third trip to the emergency clinic in a week, and Chell was becoming a familiar face to the receptionist. There was a different doctor this time, a dark-skinned man who had an accent that sounded almost like Wheatley's but not quite. This time, she was diagnosed with a mild concussion from hitting her head and a peptic ulcer in her stomach and prescribed some cheaper generic medications that she could afford.

If it wasn't for the awful headache and slight fever, she could say she almost felt like she was walking on air leaving the clinic to head to the pharmacy to fill it. Even the weather seemed somewhat empathetic; the dark bank of clouds that had been hovering over the sky for the last week or thereabouts finally broke, letting a few rays of sunshine through.

Things  _ were _ going to get better.

 

* * *

On the way home, a houndeye, trailing its broken leash behind him, wandered up to her, whining and rubbing himself against her legs.

"A-all right... Tes-la. Where's--your own-er now?"

Mel ran around the corner, holding the other part of the leash. "Tesla!" 

He whined, looking up at her, as Mel struggled to re-tie the leashes together.

"So, how's your robot doing?"

"Bet-ter. T-thanks--for... re-pairing him."

"Don't worry. Fixing robots is fun, actually. I've got one myself. He's been passed down through the family for... what is it?" She began to count her fingers, but gave up after four of them. "Well, since Gordon Freeman's time. Anyways, how's yours?"

Now was her chance. 

"He--he is... fine. Do you want to--m-meet him?"   



	9. Decay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story was not intended to go this way. It insisted anyways. After several angry discussions with it, I was finally forced to agree to do it the way it wanted. Well I hope you enjoy it anyways.

Wheatley had made a new friend.

Well, that much wasn't quite certain, but he  _ was  _ getting along quite well with the junky-looking robot that towered at 2.5 metres. His name was DØg.

He was well over four hundred years old and starting to show it; however, despite the dark yellow plating of his body that, over time, had rusted away to an even darker shade of yellow, he was well-maintained. He had suffered some neglect when passed down a dozen-or-so times through the family, but when Mel had become his new owner at the tender age of eleven, she set out to learn everything she could about robots and maintaining them. 

"Right. So. Um. Hello big robot dog thing. D...a zero with a cross through it... G. So, hello D-crossy-zero-G. Actually, if you don't mind, I believe I'll just call you Dog. A bit simpler to remember, if I'm honest, than D-crossy-zero-G. Also a bit easier on the ol' vocal processors. Not that I'm having any trouble with it, mind you, but I figure I might as well just say 'Dog' rather than 'D-crossy-zero-G.'"

Dog simply squinted, the aperture of his own single red optic constricting, and made a noise that could almost be construed as a sigh.

Meanwhile, several yards away, Chell was sitting on an old lawn chair, holding a book in her lap. The book was ridiculously large and heavy and had just come in the mail the previous day. It was a replacement copy of the  _ Aperture Science Personality Construct Maintenance and Repair Manual.  _ Her previous copy, the one that had gotten damaged, was version 14.3, and the replacement was version 14.6. 

Its sudden appearance in her mailbox, delivered by express post and having no return address, honestly made her nervous. Aperture was no longer a functioning corporation. There was nobody to mail out the replacement manual. Chell could only deduce one thing from that.  _ She  _ was behind it somehow.

She was going to have to tell Wheatley at some point, but right now, he seemed... happy. It was a nice change from some of his previous moods (for such a chipper sphere, he had an awful tendency to get melancholy), and she didn't want to wreck it. 

Almost as though her stomach had heard that last part, the knot that lay beneath her breastbone flared up. Peptic ulcer, the doctor had said, most likely caused by stress. But Chell had a fairly good idea it was more than just stress; she had already lost three toes because of Aperture. In her run through the older parts of the Enrichment Center, she had been exposed to more experimental compounds than she dared to think of.

Almost two years after she had escaped from it, Aperture was finally having its revenge.

 

* * *

Chell had dozed off for a few moments, and she was startled awake by the sound of the glass patio door sliding open and Tesla, Mel's pet houndeye, yipping to be let outside. She opened her eyes, squinting as the sun shone directly into them, and carefully shifted herself to a sitting position. Her broken finger, almost just healed, ached a bit as she bumped it against the armrest.

There was an element in the repulsion gel did  _ not  _ like the human skeleton, but she hadn't said anything about it to the doctor who, just two days ago, had done a series of X-rays that determined that her bone density was abnormally low for a woman of her age and general health.

Blinking again, Chell looked towards the door. The housekeeper, a tall, imposing woman with a tight bun of gray hair, brought out a tray with a tall glass of cola on it.

Still no sign of Mel. The other girl was supposed to have shown up more than an hour ago; when they had talked on the phone the night before, Mel had mentioned wanting to borrow the manual, and had agreed to meet her here. Although she was wealthy enough (being a distant descendent of the guy who pretty much saved the world left a tidy little inheritance for her), as much as it was cliche, there just were some things money couldn't buy.

Although Chell had to admit that money was useful at times (especially when it came to matters of paying rent or buying groceries), she would  _ not  _ return to Aperture for any amount of money. She had already lived through the horrors once, and that once was enough. 

She had gained her freedom. She was going to take it.

But for how long?

Chell looked up. Dog was galloping towards her at high speed. Less than a yard from collision with her, he skidded to a stop, the metal bits of his feet churning up tufts of lawn and soil with it, before gently depositing Wheatley into her lap. He then took off in another direction, looking for something to play with, with Tesla bounding after him.

"Ah, man alive, what--a--robot! I mean just look at him! Bloody massive and everything-- well, not as bloody massive as  _ I  _ was, as you probably remember, but choosers can't be beggars--no, wait, beggars can't be choosers--but honestly, look at him, arms and legs and-- No, I'm sounding ungrateful here, aren't I? I don't mean to say that you-- I mean, you built my management rail in the apartment for me, which is  _ brilliant  _ in that aspect, but having arms and legs--honestly, that would be--D'you think, just maybe, if you have the time, you could build me some? I mean if you're not sure how, but that book might tell you something about them. Building limbs. Arms and legs. For me. I wouldn't know, as I haven't seen version 14.6, only 14.3, but maybe, just maybe--"

Chell sighed, leaning heavily against the back of the chair, absently patting his hull. Honestly, her head hurt; she ought to have stayed home. She shifted Wheatley, slowly picking up the tall glass and taking a few sips. The soft drink slid down her throat, but as soon as the acid hit her stomach, the pain flared. She dropped the glass. It fell onto the patio with a clatter, the brown liquid spreading over the smooth white tiles.

"Chell? Chell, are you all right? Oh bloody, please be all right, I--" She felt a spherical bump pressing up against her, but she didn't answer, afraid that the bile building up at the back of her throat would escape. She let a hiss of air escape from between her teeth, previously unaware that she'd been holding her breath. 

Deep breaths... _ in...out... _

The nausea eventually subsided, leaving behind the lingering feeling of lightheadedness and a raw aching at the back of her throat. 

"There. Atta girl; you're going to be fine. Just keep breathing, all right? You don't want to stop with that. It's bloody dangerous, the not-breathing bit, so you'll definitely want to keep on doing that--breathing, I mean, not the not-breathing--if you want to keep on living, which I'll presume you do."

His rambling waterfall of a voice, the words that cascaded upon one another, lulled her out of a place that consisted of pain: the type of deep, aching pain that settled down into her bones, strands of the molecules that made up her DNA slowly unraveling themselves, the cry of thousands of cells, each second, as they decayed and died--

She was dying.

It was easier to accept than she had imagined it would be.

 

* * *

When Mel finally arrived with a thousand apologies for being late, still in her uniform, flour caked under her fingernails and crusting around the soles of her sneakers, Chell had decided to go home. After Mel promised to return the book in a day or two, she scooped up Wheatley, wondering just why he suddenly seemed to weigh more, and made her way out to her bike.

The bicycle was fairly nice; she had gotten it second-hand. It had been a wreck at the time, dents all throughout its frame and one missing wheel, and it had taken her a while to fix it. Now, besides the chipping, peeling paint and one or two dents, it looked almost new.

She strapped Wheatley in the wireframe basket she had installed in the front (one of his better ideas, actually), but instead of actually getting on and riding home, she slowly pushed it along the side of the road.

"Lady? What are you doing,  _ walking?  _ I mean, you've got a nice set of wheels right here, and even  _ I'll  _ admit that it's much better than those metal death traps you have--Remember? I  _ told  _ you how dangerous they were, but you actually didn't really listen to me and you almost ended up freezing to death in that thing, and am I ever glad you  _ sold  _ it after that. But anyways, what I was saying, is that this thing's much better than the metal death trap, but it doesn't very well work well for transport when you're  _ walking  _ and pushing it along, does it? The point of it is, you get onto that little... paddy-cushion thing, put your feet on those... two foot-spinning things.... and you spin the spinning things with your feet and it makes the wheels go. You're not getting the point, are you?"

If she had more energy, she probably would have given him a light shove, or perhaps told him to be quiet for once in his digital life. But she just continued on, saving her strength for pushing the bike down the hill. 

It had taken her fifteen minutes to bike from her apartment to the house where Mel lived, in the hills fringing the edge of the village, and that was at a casual pace. On foot, pushing the bicycle along the side of the road, it took more than an hour to return home.

She was almost ready to fall over, but with fumbling fingers, she managed to loop the metal chain around the bicycle's wheel, snapping the lock into place. Wheatley's voice swam in her head as she scooped him up in her arms, but she couldn't make out words.

She wanted to go to her bedroom to sleep, but each step seemed as though she was scaling mountains, each one taller than the one before. She made it to the couch, sinking down in it, just managing to settle Wheatley onto the cushion beside her before she fell into an exhausted, dreamless sleep.

 

* * *

When she awoke, still fully clothed, she couldn't even summon up the energy to pull off her sneakers. She simply lay there, eyes closed, willing the pain away. Eventually, it faded away as she fell into a state of semi-consciousness, thoughts drifting through her head. Eventually, one came to the forefront.

_ She'd know what to do. _

The idea made Chell jump, sending Wheatley clattering to the floor. She picked him up. He was in sleep-mode (in her worry, she had forgotten to charge the poor sphere), so she forced herself to get to her feet, make her way into her bedroom, put him on his cushion and plug him into the adapter. She gave his hull a quiet pat before heading out to the bathroom to wash up.

Chell didn't dare look at herself in the mirror, because she knew what would face her back: unnaturally ashen tone of skin, gaunt, cheekbones sticking out, dark bags under her eyes, in all terms of the word, exhausted. Instead, she picked up her toothbrush, spreading toothpaste on it (strange how squeezing the tube had seemed so  _ easy _ just days ago) and began to brush. When she spat back into the sink, her saliva was red with blood.

 

* * *

Several hours later, Wheatley slowly emerged from his sleep-mode. Blinking and letting out a simulated yawn, he stretched his handlebars out and spun his optic plate around several times as he let his self-diagnostic tests run. Yup, everything in order. In fact, he felt pretty good. Once that was done, he disengaged the power adapter, looking around the room. Everything seemed to be all right, except...

He pushed himself off of the cushion, ending up optic-down on the floor. After a moment, he managed to right himself and slowly make his way over to where Chell was leaning against the wall, eyes squeezed tightly shut, her hunched up shoulders shaking.

"Chell?" He looked up at her, worried. "What's the matter, luv?"

The only response she let out was a low groan. 

"Lady? Chell? What is it? Are you all right? Oh bloody, please be all right, I--"

Her hand was lowered, hidden from his sight. When she finally lifted it, all he could see a chunk of her own hair held loosely in her palm.

 

* * *

That night, Chell couldn't sleep, so she carried Wheatley out to the front porch to sit on the folding chair. The night air was warm and sweet and crickets chirped all around.

"It's lovely out here, isn't it? Besides the dark. Reminds me of other times, to be honest. Back there. Other times I'd rather not remember again, even though some of them were tremendous memories, us becoming friends and all. Escaping from Her. Two of a kind, us both. If only I hadn't gone power-mad and--" He shuddered for a moment, squeezing his optic shut. "Actually, no. I'm  _ not  _ going to mention that again. Bringing up that sort of stuff never ends well, does it? So I'm not going to mention it. Zip. Zilch. Nothing. Not going to purge it from the memory banks-- that'd be easy well enough, but you never know when you might need to remember that stuff again. I mean about being power-mad and everything. Could be handy to have on record. But for now, back of the mind-- hard drive, I should say, as I'm a robot and don't actually have an actual mind-- no, that's not what I mean, I mean I'm very well capable of the higher cognitive processes. Though I'm not the brightest, I am very well capable of those, but-- agh, actually, never mind this, there I am, rambling on for no reason whatsoever. No excuses, really. But it  _ is _ a lovely night, with those chirping chirpy-bug things."

Chell blinked up at the crescent moon, suspended in the sky. Would she live long enough to see it change once again? How much time did she have left? What would happen to Wheatley? Would he sit in the house for years, alone, or end up in a burning scrap heap?

She had survived Aperture. She had been set free. And yet Aperture felt it could, almost two years later, just sneak its way back in and snatch everything away from her. 

No. She couldn't let it win.

Yet, she could only think of one thing to do, and she didn't like the thought of it.

 

* * *

When she awoke the next morning, the sun just peeking over the horizon, she had made up her mind. She was going to return to Aperture to ask for Her assistance.

Making that decision lifted a heavy burden off of her mind. 

"Mornin', luv." Wheatley stretched out his handlebars, almost like a cat stretching out its limbs. "Any better today? Honestly not expecting it, but it's possible that you've recovered from-- whatever you have that makes you tired, absolutely exhausted, and makes all your hair fall out of your head."

Chell didn't say a word, just carried the talkative sphere back into the living room. She set him on the couch with the remote control and pushed down on his upper handlebar. "S-stay... here."

"Well of  _ course  _ I'm going to stay here. It's not like I can exactly just get up and walk away, is it? I mean, I don't exactly have anything to  _ move  _ myself with, but-- right. Staying right here. Seat--figurative seat, I'm a sphere, but you know that as well as I do--affixed right here. To the couch. Where I am  _ already  _ sitting at the moment."

Giving him another light pat, she made her way out to the kitchen to find something for breakfast. She hadn't gone grocery shopping for a while, and she eventually settled on a peanut butter sandwich. The bread was stale and the peanut butter had settled to the bottom of the jar, the oil floating on top.

It didn't really help her stomach pain all that much, but she forced herself to choke it down anyways. She didn't need malnutrition on top of everything else. She had to keep her strength up.

The sound of a soap opera (just  _ why  _ was Wheatley addicted to those damn things?) drifted from the TV, and she closed her eyes for just a moment, listening to it, wondering just how she was going to tell Wheatley.

Her thoughts were interrupted by heavy footsteps clomping up on her front porch and her mailbox slamming shut. Chell slowly got to her feet, gingerly making her way outside to check the mail.

Junk mail, junk mail, electricity bill, more junk mail, and an embossed envelope. The paper was thick and heavy and had a light, creamy colour. She didn't quite recognize the return address. Not even bothering to go back inside (despite the fact that she was still in her pyjamas and slippers) she opened it.

Inside was a national magazine, with Aperture's logo emblazoned on the front, those awful wedged circles that would never fail to haunt her. She forced herself to remain calm: breathe in, breathe out (even though the physical act pained her) before thumbing it open.

At first, she didn't recognize the words on the page, but after a moment she realized they were her own. Yes, that interview she had given that reporter last year, before... well, she wasn't going to think of that again. Although she had somewhat regretted making herself dredge up old memories for the sake of posterity and publication at the time, now it was sort of nice to be nationally acknowledged, even if it was under the somewhat-uninspired pseudonym of Subject Omega.

But being nationally acknowledged wouldn't help her now, not unless--

She had somehow managed to miss the narrow slip of paper that lay against the side of the envelope. With trembling, pained fingers she plucked it out and held it up to eye level.

It was a cheque made out to her name, for five hundred dollars.

It was more than enough to settle her bills and to buy a rusty old van, sight unseen, from the classifieds (biking across half a continent would be, at the least, somewhat impractical). Things were looking up.

Now, she just had to tell Wheatley.

 

* * *

As she had expected, Wheatley didn't take the news well.

"WHAT?!" He yelped out the word. "Lady, just  _ what  _ are you bloody thinking here? Are you seriously--I mean, are you even in your right mind? Because--"

"It's... the on-ly thing I-- I can think of. It's ... s-stupid, I know."

"Well, right it is, lady, if you think  _ I'm _ going to bloody allow myself to be dragged back there just so you--it's mental, lady, just absolutely mental! I mean, if it were up to me, I'd get as far away from Her as I can!"

"Whea-tie. It's-- if-- If I  _ don't  _ go back, I--"

She swallowed, her throat tight and dry.

"I'm going to...die."

It was well over 120 seconds before Wheatley spoke again.

"Lady? What do you mean you're going to  _ die?  _ Nuh-uh. Nope. You're making it up, aren't you? Lying. Can't fool ol' Wheatley here-- You just want--" His voice ground to a standstill, his plates shifting to a pained expression. "...You're not lying, are you? I mean, really, why would you do that? Nope. You're not the type of lady to make up things just because--" His voice broke a bit. 

Chell didn't say anything, just squeezed her eyes shut, holding him tight as though it was just all a nightmare and she would wake up any moment from it.

"Right. So... Aperture. Going back to Aperture. Seems to be the only option, really. Seeing as you seem to think it is, and since you're the expert around here-- well, I'm just going to have to defer to your vast experience. But for me, lady, I'm  _ never  _ setting foot-- rail, rail, I sometimes use human metaphors for no reason-- in that place again."


	10. Inbound

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's fun to write robots.

In the end, Wheatley refused to return to Aperture with her, and she couldn't bring herself to blame him for that. Not wanting to leave him alone in the house for the time she was going to be away, she decided to ask Mel to take care of him.

In exchange, she had gotten another traveling companion- DØg.

"Seriously, do you think I am about to let you cross half the continent by _yourself_ when you're in such a state?"Mel had asked. "Especially if the lightbulb is staying home? Nope. Dog is coming with you. Right boy?"

Dog did a little happy dance, pounding himself in his excitement.

* * *

They set off the next day.

Large swathes of the former United States and Canada, parts that the Combine had swept for resources over and over, plundering and picking bare the earth until it was inhospitable, had become nothing more than an endless, barren Wasteland. It was a place where only the toughest and most adaptable of species could survive, a place teeming with Xenian wildlife, a place where only a few dared to drive across the endless, dust-covered highway.

Chell had only seen the Wasteland briefly before, in one of the high-speed trains on the network of tracks that crisscrossed their way over the dry, cracked earth. Out the window, she had seen a vast scrapland containing dozens of ancient, junked, rusted-out vehicles, most of them settled deep into the crust, some of them almost completely buried by the eons of swirling dust.

She would've been on a train herself, but it seemed that every train in her district was overbooked due to the spring break; the soonest she'd be able to board a train was in two weeks, and Chell didn't know if she could wait that long. Two weeks later could be too late.

The border of the wasteland was easily defined by the large red sign warning that the nearest gas station was well over two hundred miles away. At least one or two people a year died out on that desolate road, stranded after running out of fuel, only to die of dehydration or killed by xenotheric species. Chell wasn't going to let the same thing happen to her, and she double-checked the gas tank for any leaks or damage before setting off.

Dog loped alongside her van, easily keeping pace, and they both managed to keep ahead of schedule. Although the wasteland was desolate, it wasn't completely uninhabited, and she reached a rest stop by the time the sun began to dip down over the horizon.

She dragged herself into the small, fluorescent-lit restaurant to order a meal; she still hadn't gained her appetite back, but keeping up her strength was important. She tilted her head back, letting the ceiling fan blow wisps of hair from her forehead and trying to ignore the pain in her bones. The food finally arrived: a soggy, thin burger and limp, pale, overly-salty fries that she had to almost choke down, and a chocolate milkshake that was actually pretty good.

She filled up the gas tank, spread the foam pad on the backseat of the van, and tucked herself in under the blanket. She closed her eyes, but couldn't bring herself to go to sleep.

She missed Wheatley.

* * *

Dog liked the lady.

The lady reminded him of his girl- not the yellow-haired one, but his other girl, a long time ago, the one who had lived with the orange man after the bad aliens and nasty floating slug things went away. Then one day they had both gotten into a car and drove away and then they never came back.

After that the other humans, who Dog had seen since they were small and pink and wrinkly but then got bigger and bigger and then left the house for a long time, came back to the house and they cried a lot and went through the house and took away some of the things in the house that had belonged to his girl and the orange man.

Dog, waiting in his doghouse, was almost forgotten. It was a long time before the other humans found him and took him to their place and then put him into the shed and forgot about him.

But Dog was a good dog, or at least he tried to be, and although he could have broken down the old, rotted shed, he didn't.

He waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Eventually the shed fell down and he lifted up the wreckage and climbed out from under it. Other people, people he had never seen before, ran out of the house and he was excited to meet the new people. They fussed over him and played with him for a while, and then they got bored of him and put him back into another, newly-built, shed.

So Dog waited.

And waited.

And waited.

He was a good dog. He could wait for his girl to come back.

It was a long time before he realized that she _wasn't_ going to come back, and that made him sad. Dog had one job, and that was to protect the girl, and he had _failed_ at that. He was a bad dog.

He was upset and angry and he had knocked down the shed and then a small girl with yellow hair came outside and he was upset, and although he didn't mean to he ended up knocking her to the ground. She lay there, whimpering, her arm held awkwardly, and then Dog felt bad for hurting her and carefully approached her, gently lifting her to her feet.

Other people came out of the house and the girl ran towards them and Dog thought he was going to get in trouble but instead of yelling at him or locking him up or something they ran back into the house and after a while he heard loud high-pitched noises. He climbed up onto the house's roof to see what was happening and he saw the small yellow-haired girl on a rolling bed thing, being put into the back of a white car-machine with a flashing thing on top.

A man came outside and put a chain on him, and because the chain was attached to a heavy piece of concrete buried in the ground, he couldn't get it off. He was a very bad dog if he needed a chain.

The next day the small, yellow-haired girl came out of the house with a bulky-looking white thing on her arm. With her other hand she patted him and said that it was okay, that she knew he didn't mean to hurt her and that her name was Melanie.

He liked the yellow-haired girl, actually. She wasn't the same as his other girl, but she was nice anyways and as she got bigger she learned how to fix his damaged parts and remove most of the rust from his casing. Although the older man kept the chain on him, one day another white-car machine with sirens and flashing lights came and took him away and a few days later, the yellow-haired girl (who was not small anymore) came and took the chain off of him. She was sad and crying a little bit so Dog gave her a hug but he was careful not to squish her.

After the older man went away, the yellow-haired girl lived in the house with the tall angry-looking lady. The angry-looking lady didn't really like him, but it was all right because she didn't lock him in a shed or tie him to a chain.

One summer, Dog had seen a small boy scaling over the fence to get into the swimming pool that was in another part of the yard. He got worried about that and followed the boy. It was a good thing he did because the small boy slipped and fell into the pool and didn't come back up. Without a second thought, Dog plunged his arm into the water and grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him back up so he could breathe.

He took the boy to the back doorstep and rang the doorbell and the angry-looking woman answered. She looked worried and said things about a nephew being trouble and mischief and then the boy coughed several times and then she went in the house for a bit. When she came back out she hugged Dog and told him he was a good boy.

He wasn't a bad dog anymore. He was a good dog.

* * *

The lady was sad.

Dog wondered if she missed the other robot, the round robot with the big blue eye that talked too much. There was something between them, the same sort of thing that he had with his girl, something that was more than just friendship.

He wondered why the round robot hadn't come with them, and then wondered if the place they were going was very dangerous. If it was dangerous it made sense to leave the round robot at home, but then why would the lady go in the first place?

There were a lot of things Dog didn't understand, but for now, he had to cheer up the lady. He didn't like to see her sad.

He approached the van, the three flaps surrounding his optic retracting backwards as he opened the door. The lady lifted her head, her shoulders shaking as the blanket slid off of them.

"Vrrrt?"

* * *

Chell had never known how much she would miss Wheatley.

In hindsight, it wasn't that much of a surprise. Even on those nights she had spent in the institution, he was almost always by her side, and as she searched her memory she couldn't remember one night they had been separated.

So when Dog had approached the van, she just jumped out, wrapping her arms around him, pulling him into a hug, sniffling. The robot made one or two beeping noises and then wrapped an arm around her.

Finally, completely exhausted, she fell asleep. Dog let out a sigh-like noise, gently lowering her back into the van and pulling the blanket around her.

* * *

They were back on the road by seven a.m.

Chell had her breakfast at the same restaurant (there was a different cook on, and the grilled-cheese sandwich and hot cocoa she ordered was delicious), filled up the gas tank, checked her supplies, and headed off.

She only ran into trouble once. Long stretches of the highway crossing the wasteland hadn't seen a proper repaving in years, and were riddled with potholes and hasty re-patches, creating a road that looked, to some extent, like a long, narrow, stretched out patchwork quilt.

And then, all of a sudden, there was no road. The tires sank down into the sand, and she hit her foot on the accelerator, with the only result being a shower of dust flying up from the ground.

She tilted her head, looking in the rearview mirror. Of course, now of all times was when Dog suddenly decided to run off. She settled down to wait. She took a few sips of water, and then fiddled with the radio. There was hardly any reception out here, but she eventually picked up some station with an announcer talking about a Carlos who apparently had perfect hair or something. After a minute or two, though, the reception once again faded to static, and she smacked the button to turn off the radio.

She needed to stretch her legs, so she stepped out of the van. In the distance, there was a tall, black, monolithic structure slowly pumping up and down. When she had first seen one, she had thought it was some sort of strange power generator, but now she knew that it was a thumper, a device used to keep antlions, giant alien bugs, at bay.

The blood running through her legs felt almost good after being cramped in the van for about three hours, and if it hadn't been for the faint chirping noise, she never would have known the headcrab was there. When it felt her footsteps, it had burrowed up from under the hot sand, and then was attracted by her scent.

Now it was approaching her, its smooth brown body not quite glistening in the sun, its two forelegs splayed outward as it tiptoed on its hind legs, and its two tiny, sharp black teeth almost looking like daggers. Chell backed away, holding her hands up in front of her face, inwardly cursing herself for once again being careless.

Dog appeared in the distance, almost tripping over himself as he raced towards her, but the crab was faster. With a high-pitched squeal, it lunged for her head and latched on.


	11. Wheat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My favourite Half-Life alien makes an appearance towards the end of this chapter. Hooray!

Dog had failed once again. He was supposed to protect the lady, but he hadn't. 

Once again, he was a bad dog. 

He had almost forgotten how dangerous the common headcrab could be; more than four hundred years of human handling and contact had made the domesticated headcrabs about as dangerous as a hamster. But the wild headcrabs were just that-- wild. And still thriving in the wasteland, apparently. 

Suddenly, with one hard shove, the lady pried the headcrab off, flinging it away. It hit the side of the van with an angry squeal of pain, dropping down onto its back, the red maw on its underside gaping open. Before it had a chance to get back on its feet, he was already attacking it, stomping it until it finally expired. 

 

* * *

Even though the hot asphalt was blistering and had the heavy, sickening smell of hot oil and tar, she didn't move. She could still feel the headcrab's sharp teeth digging into her skull, its hot saliva dripping down her face, the hot, putrid odor filling her nostrils, the sound of the crunch of its teeth breaking through her skin

Oddly enough, it didn't hurt. But she was exhausted.

Dog looked down at her, the three flaps surrounding his optic shifting around, the aperture around his optic contracting as he let out a low, disappointed sound.

In the distance was another sound. Dog suddenly straightened up to his full height of eight feet, turning towards it. Then he pulled Chell to her feet, dragging her into the distance.

 

* * *

The Vortigaunt camp was nestled in a shallow, narrow, gently-sloping valley with a natural spring at one end. The three Vortigaunts that lived within, although not employed in any sort of official capacity (albeit facing a modest amount of support from the regional bureaucracy, which was otherwise reluctant to deal with the problem of the Wasteland), served as a sort of rescue operation, providing assistance to those wayward travellers who had gotten lost or stranded. 

Chell, wrapped up in a blanket against the chill that had pervaded the area after the sun set, winced as one of the Vorts applied an ointment to the bite marks in her head, and muttered what she presumed to be some form of Vortigaunt swear.

Despite reading about them in her huge coffee-table book, she probably would have been more than a little nervous about the Vorts if Dog hadn't seemed completely at ease at them. Green skinned, three-armed (although the third arm, sticking out of their chest, was small enough to be considered almost vestigial), multi-eyed and speaking in a strange, overly-formal version of English, they were, in every sense of the word, aliens.

"The Chell has avoided a most terrible fate." Before Chell could could say a word, even to ask how he knew her name, the Vort left her alone with the bowl of soup he had brought. She swallowed another small mouthful. It was pretty good, and although she had considered asking what was in it, she thought better of it.

After a few more spoonfuls of the soup, her almost vacant appetite faded, and she put the bowl aside, curling up in a fruitless attempt to go to sleep.

 

* * *

The next morning, after thanking the Vortigaunts ("We require no gratitude," one of them said to her), she carefully perched on Dog's back for the return trip to the van. 

Despite the fact that the keys had been left in the ignition, it was still there, exactly where she had left it, the only difference being that it had sunk a little further into the sand.

After getting it back on the tarmac (not for the first time, Chell was glad that Mel had  _ insisted  _ she bring DOG along), they were back on the road again. Even though the headcrab attack had put her behind schedule, by noon the barren, cracked bed of the Wasteland was left behind. The wasteland became scrubland, covered in small bushes and sparely peppered by small tufts of pale, wilting grass. 

The scrubland, in turn, was replaced by rolling hills carpeted in a rich greenery which almost hurt her eyes after seeing so much brown. Barbed wire fences ran parallel to the highway, and particoloured cattle raised their heads, bellowing as they stared with large brown eyes at the strange monstrous wheeled thing passing by.

Tall oak and maple trees began to appear, as well as scattered evergreen trees, thickening until they had thickened to the point where it was considered a forest. By this time, it was sunset, and Chell was well out of the Wastelands.

Everything  _ hurt  _ as she stumbled out of the van. She could feel her back contort in pain as she stretched out, and a dull, heavy ache spread through her limbs as she forced herself to choke down a dry, crumbled chocolate chip muffin so she could have something in her stomach before she turned in for the night.

 

* * *

At a distance, the sign glistening in the sun -- "Golden Meadow Estates," she read-- had the timeless look of polished oak, but when she drove closer, it became obvious that the sign at the edge of the wheat field was, in fact, made of fibreglass.

She got out of the van, her feet crunching on the gravel road beneath her, trying to force down the growing lump in her throat, shielding her eyes against the glaring sun. 

In the distance, a bulldozer sat, its yellow paint dingy and sorry-looking, its sharp blades tearing up the soil, leaving a trail of broken stems behind it.

For a long moment, she looked, before reaching into the back of the van and pulling out her backpack and double-checking, and then triple-checking, to make sure the contents that she had packed so carefully at the beginning of the trip were still there.

She walked over to the bulldozer, putting a hand against it. It remained there, a large, immovable, man-made piece of machinery in the midst of a field of gold. She blinked a few times, trying to convince herself it was just the glare of the sun that was bringing tears to her eyes. She didn't have time to get emotional.

But there was no way these people would know they were building their homes on top of Hell.

 

* * *

It was over an hour of walking until Chell reached the shed, or at least what was  _ once  _ the shed. Corrugated metal and roof shingles formed a haphazard pile on the concrete base, and she wondered how long it had been down.

Chell swung the backpack off her shoulders, wiping her hand on her pants before opening it. The zipper caught for a moment, before giving way and easily sliding open.

Her long-fall-boots, scarred and worn, slipped onto her feet easily, giving her room to wiggle all seven of her remaining toes. She pulled the straps tight enough to give herself bruises, but she tried to ignore the pain, knowing that if the boots got loose, it could be deadly.  _ Abso-bloody-lutely deadly _ , as she could imagine Wheatley saying, and she let herself smile a little bit.

Once the boots were secure, she reached back into the bag, pulling out a bundle wrapped in a few towels. Fingers fumbling as she undid the safety pins, she got a glimpse of orange.

Even though it was sturdy, weighing well over ten pounds, Chell was almost afraid of breaking it. Like Dog, it was the handiwork of the Resistance: built for practicality rather than any sort of aesthetics. She ran her finger down the translucent, orange barrel, examining the prongs, which reminded her so much of her old Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device.

But it wasn't the portal gun. It was the Zero-Point Energy Field Manipulator, which Mel had called the "gravity gun."

Chell got to her feet, biting her lips, hefting the gravity gun against her. She took a deep breath, aimed the gravity gun, and rotated the handle.

It was harder than Mel had made it look, and at first Chell thought that-- somehow, during the trip-- the gravity gun had broken. Then there was a faint tremor, an almost-inaudible buzzing, and she could have sworn the prongs had moved just a little bit--

A sheet of corrugated metal shifted a bit, being pulled forwards, towards her. The device oscillated more, the needle on the small meter swinging back and forth, orange beams of energy dancing between the prongs. Then, suddenly, the sheet was actually  _ floating in mid-air,  _ held there by the device.

Chell wasn't exactly a stranger to this sort of thing-- after all, her portal gun had a weaker form of the field manipulator, which proved to be handy when lugging around huge, heavy cubes in the test chambers. But she had never imagined it working on something so  _ big,  _ and from a distance too--

Turning away from the wreck, she braced herself, before rotating the handle in the other direction.

Even though she had anticipated it, she hadn't  _ really _ anticipated it. The kickback sent her flying backwards, and it was only because of her long-fall boots that she didn't end up on her behind (which, considering her current state of health, would possibly be more than inconvenient). She scrambled up, looking around her, only to find that the sheet of metal had landed more than fifteen feet away.

 

* * *

Chell had estimated that it would take a half-hour to clear all the rubble away, but then Dog returned from... whatever it was Dog did (for obvious reasons, she didn't ask) and the mess was cleared in ten minutes.

She didn't know what she had been really expecting; an empty elevator shaft, maybe some sort of covering that could be punted out of the way, but there was nothing there but solid concrete, in a somewhat lighter shade than the platform surrounding it.

The elevator shaft had been filled in.

Chell's shoulders trembled, and she sank to the ground. She wasn't sad, or angry, or worried, she was just.... numb. She swallowed back the awful lump in her throat, yanked off her long-fall boots, hefted the gravity gun against her (she hadn't even the energy to put it into her backpack), got to her feet and started walking towards the van.

Various bits and pieces of the broken-down shed had scattered throughout the area, so she didn't notice the door until she tripped over it. If she had wanted to, she could have re-gained her balance and kept walking.

Instead, she let herself fall. She landed face-down in the dirt and didn't get back up.

 

* * *

Something moved. Chell slowly opened her eyes, lifting her face, rough with dirt and loose wheat stems, from the dry ground. She blinked a few times, before something came into focus. A small, purple creature with a single red eye, thumping its front foot on the ground before sticking out a blue tongue at her. It wasn't quite like the toads she had seen in her grade-school science textbook, but it was fairly close.

She wanted to pet it.

Slowly, she reached out a hand. It flicked its tongue once before vanishing with a poof of purple energy.

She squeezed her eyes shut, clenching her jaw shut and rolling herself onto her back so she could push herself into a sitting position, every contortion sending spasms of pain down her spine and through her limbs. From there, it was relatively easy (though not much less painless) to pull herself to her feet. 

Chell blinked, and saw the purple toad again, a few yards away, almost hidden between the stalks of grain. She approached it.

Once again, it disappeared.

And once again, it reappeared, several yards away.

And once again, Chell followed it.

This continued on for more than an hour. For some reason, she never thought to question it.

Any questions about where Dog had gotten to after helping her move the shed vanished when she saw him in the distance. The purple toad, apparently finished its work, was nowhere to be seen.

Dog looked up at her as she approached, as though he wondered what took her so long, and then motioned towards something on the ground.

It was a grille. It was the type of thing she'd usually see on a city street, not in the middle of a wheat field. Even more importantly, it was big enough for a single human to fit into.

But not a huge robot like Dog.

She had been planning to bring him along with her, down the elevator shaft, in case of... well, she didn't really want to think about what would happen if things went wrong, and anyways that was now beside the point.

She'd have to go alone.

Chell looked up at him, and then threw her arms around him, giving him a hug. "Good boy," she whispered. "N-now... move...it for me?"

For the second time that day, she pulled on her long-fall-boots, strapping them around her legs, before getting to her feet. She braced the gravity gun under her arm, not wanting to drop it on the way down, and then stood there, staring down into the darkness, her throat tight.

She couldn't--

She  _ had  _ to--

Dog shoved her in.

She couldn't see anything as she fell, and that was probably something of a good thing. At least, until she hit the water, sinking deep into it.

It was then that she realized that she had never learned to swim.

 


	12. Interloper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not only did I wreak havoc with the game's official canon, but I think I also broke the laws of physics several times in this chapter.  
> Ah, the things you can get away with by declaring your story "semi-AU."

On those nights where Chell couldn't find sleep easily, she often lay on her back, Wheatley nuzzled against her side, and attempted to remember _anything_ about her former life. Her life before Aperture.

It always remained elusive. If she were lucky, she could remember vague images-always blurred, always remaining out of reach, to the point where she was left wondering if there had been a life before Aperture, or if it was just some figment of her imagination. Whether it was something she had come up with to allow her to cope.

But as she plunged deep into the water of what she had errantly assumed to be a type of ventilation shaft, feeling an overpowering undertow pulling her along, she could remember clearly: a lazy summer day at the local community pool. Someone-it could have been her father, or perhaps a swimming instructor-encouraging her to take a deep breath and float face-down in the water. As skinny as she was, combined with the fact that, even as a six-year-old, she was never _fully_ at ease with things, Chell always sank straight to the bottom, before sputtering to the surface.

After a few more tries, she had given up for good. Unlike some of the older kids who she'd watch as she splashed about in the shallow end, she'd never learn to slice effortlessly through the water. Later on, when she got older, she'd completely forgo getting into the water, preferring to sit on the deck, reading a book.

Her shoulder hit something. Instinctively, she reached out, grabbing it, pulling her face out of the water, gasping and sputtering. It was dark, and if there hadn't been the faint orange glow from the gravity gun, she wouldn't be able to see her hand in front of her face.

The water was still rushing by her, tugging at her limbs. She came to a quick decision. Tucking the device closer to her, she swallowed down her nervousness-and let go.

She was now inside some sort of pipe, almost like a wider version of the pipes that carried the mobility gels from the lower levels of the Enrichment Center. There was hardly any room to keep her mouth and nose clear of the water here, and her breaths came in small, short, painful gasps. Then, suddenly, the air was gone. Water streamed down her throat, and she clamped her mouth shut.

She couldn't get herself oriented in these turning, twisting pipes, so she did the only thing she could think of-curl herself up into a ball, letting the water rush her along, hoping she could catch a breath of air _soon-_

Another rush of water hit her from another direction, and she was slammed against the side of the pipe. Her mouth opened and a few precious bubbles of air escaped before she squeezed it shut again. The pressure of the water began to feel unbearable: icy fingers pouring down her ears, up her nose, trying to force its way into her mouth and down her throat.

Air. She needed air. But there was none-only cold, fast-moving water, and she knew she mustn't breathe.

How much longer could she hold out before instinct won out? Fifteen, thirty seconds?

Dark starbursts began to dance at the edge of her vision, and it was all she could do not to give in, not to let herself take a breath, because the moment she opened her mouth-

She slammed against something. Her head snapped backwards, almost knocking her out. For a moment, she remained there, pinned against the grate, watching the last trail of silvery bubbles escape from her lungs, but somehow, she managed not to breathe in before once again closing her mouth. For a moment, it wasn't her there; it was just someone else: someone who was drowning.

_The gravity gun!_

It had, by some miraculous force, remained in her arms for the whole, jolting trip. Counting down the seconds-

Ten, nine- _she aimed it at the grate_ -eight, seven- _which way should she turn the handle?_ -six- _no, she couldn't, she couldn't-_

The grate pulled easily from the pipe. Chell twisted her body around, aiming herself away from it and upwards- _Five, four-_ She couldn't do it-

She turned the handle.

Once again, the kickback sent her flying, exactly as she had imagined it would. This time, she spun and flailed upwards, into another current. Her face broke the surface, and she took deep, heaving breaths of the oxygen she badly needed. Her chest felt as though someone had wrapped too much elastic around it, and water sloshed in her ears, making them pop.

There was light here. Sputtering, Chell bobbed in the water, frantically kicking to keep afloat with the weight of the gravity gun, and looked around. Up ahead, she could see a large piece of churning, nasty-looking machinery. Images danced through her head, images of her being mashed to pieces, dismembered, her blood pooling through the water, and she began to almost hyperventilate.

The water was unnaturally clean here, and she could see a gap, one just small enough for her to squeeze through. She squeezed her eyes shut, terror gripping her at the thought of once again being submerged, being trapped under there-

The machine grew closer, and imagining gruesome scenes-ones involving crushed bones and mangled flesh-she once again filled her lungs with air and kicked downwards, aiming for the opening in the grate. From the surface, the tank didn't look quite this deep, but it was well more than eight feet underwater. The pressure in her ears built and built until she was sure they would explode, but she managed to roll herself, tucking herself in, squeezing through the narrow opening. The rough metal bits snagged on her clothing, and she took a moment to free herself, struggling to once again ignore the burning pain in her chest.

Once she was safely past the machine, she kicked her way upwards, towards the surface. She didn't quite make it.

Dark starbursts exploded in her field of vision, and, still clinging to the gravity gun, her limp body sank to the bottom.

* * *

The Announcer's crisp voice spread throughout the entire wing. "Warning: The Coolant Storage Device is not a swimming area. Please exit the Coolant Storage Device or further action will be required." After a few seconds, the voice repeated the warning, and this time, from the bottom of the tank, mechanical arms pushed a series of grey panels up, one after the other. Simultaneously, they broke the surface, before tilting themselves towards a concrete platform, a method used to formerly discourage employees from taking a quick skinny-dip in the tank.

A small, bedraggled, unconscious form slowly slid off, and the panels sank back down into the water. A white-and-red camera, the type so pervasive throughout the facility, swivelled towards her.

* * *

A slight breeze blew through the room, lifting a soaked tendril of hair from the woman's forehead. Her chest rose once, and then twice, and a long, shuddering sigh settled throughout her body.

She blinked a few times, turning her head over, vomiting out a mixture of water and whatever other contents of her stomach were mixed in with it. A puddle of grimy liquid spread over the platform, forming rivulets as it flowed away, pouring back into the tank.

The woman vomited a few more times, her entire body heaving and twisting with the effort, before she felt like she had emptied her stomach. Even then, it took a few moments to convince her body otherwise; she continued to heave, her stomach seeming to turn inside out from the effort, until it finally settled down.

Every fibre in her body seemed to scream out in pain, and she clenched her teeth as she yanked and pulled at already-tender muscles in an effort to push herself into a sitting position.

The air here blended the burning sting of chlorine from the tank with the hot, stale scent of hundreds of machines running-the smell of fried dust, along with a strong metallic smell that she could almost taste in the back of her throat-to form a strong aroma that stung her nose and eyes and left her queasy to her stomach. Pale-grey eyes shifted upwards, towards a series of large, yellow stencil-block letters painted on the grey walls.

 _APERTURE SCIENCE NUCLEAR REACTOR CORE COOLANT STORAGE DEVICE C-042,_ the letters read, and the woman wondered just how many of these enormous tanks there were. Surely one was enough?

Slipping and falling several times, the woman clambered to her feet. Her legs swayed and wobbled beneath her, and she squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the moment to pass.

When she opened her eyes, she saw something on the ground. Even though her spine seemed to distort, twisting into itself, as she crouched down to pick it up, she did so. It was large and heavy and the thick barrel-part was tinted orange, but she wasn't sure what it was.

The woman took slow, lurching steps towards some sort of blast door. The small orange light on it flickered green. With a hiss of air, the center of the door spun around, allowing the top and bottom to separate. She stepped through, the door slid closed, and she was faced with an office.

It was long-abandoned-white drywall had yellowed into a dingy beige sort of color, and everything was coated in a thick layer of grey dust. A faded calendar on the wall, with an almost-whitewashed photograph of a serene pastoral scene, read "MAY 200-", the last number being smudged to the point of being indecipherable. Along with a coffee mug reading 'WHO FARTED?', two ancient-looking desktop computers sat on a desk, side-by-side. One of them was on its side, its cover missing, and completely filled with a frightening-looking green growth that she silently decided to stay clear of. The other, which had by some miracle managed to keep running throughout the years, displayed a solid blue screen. The woman leaned forward to read the white text:

_A fatal exception 0E has occurred at 0028:C1C68AEE in VxD HSFLOP(03). The current application will be terminated._

_* Press any key to terminate the current application_

_* Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart your computer. You will lose any unsaved information in all applications._

_Press any key to continue._

The woman slowly reached forward, placing three fingers on the Ctrl, Alt, and Delete keys, before simultaneously pressing down on them.

The monitor went dark. There was a loud pop from the computer tower, and then the sharp stink of fried electronics filled her nostrils. A bluish cloud of smoke billowed up from the back of the computer tower, becoming no more than faint, swirling trails as they dissipated into a ventilation pipe.

The woman decided she might as well sit in the chair for a while, even though it was so hard and uncomfortable that it actually hurt to sit on. She wasn't exactly sure what she was supposed to be doing. In fact, she couldn't remember much at all.

* * *

Several hours later, Chell slowly raised her head from the desk. She couldn't remember much-there was water, a churning piece of machinery, and then-

Just a blank.

But she was inside Aperture, and that was what mattered.

A sharp, caustic pain filled her stomach and she quickly got to her feet, tucking the gravity gun under her arm. Her hands were slick with fresh perspiration, and her fingernails dug into her palms as she took slow, deliberate steps towards a small wooden door. Although the handle made a sharp, ear-splitting noise, it turned easily, and then Chell was faced with a shimmering blue barrier that fluxed and rippled, one that threatened to snatch away the Zero-Point Energy Field Manipulator.

She could leave it behind. Or she could risk it.

Chell wasn't really one to waste her time making up her mind; without any further hesitation, she stepped through the Emancipation Grill. The gravity gun was snatched from her arms.

She cursed inwardly, until she looked down.

* * *

In the 1950s, after an undescribed incident involving the Quantum Tunneling Device, the lab boys at Aperture Science discovered Xen, unintentionally creating a solution to the problem of the Mantis Men.

"Cave Johnson here. Well, it seems that the lab boys have discovered some sort of Borderworld. A whole alternate dimension. Nothing over there, though, besides weird purple frog creatures. And we all know that great science isn't built on the backs of purple frog creatures.

"Anyway, you're probably asking yourself, 'Cave, what's so special about this Borderworld? Why are you yammering on about it?' Well, here's why. Our lab boys have figured out what to do with our army of Mantis Men. Send them over _there._ Throw 'em back a couple millennia and let the frogs deal with it. Haha. Maybe we'll check back there in a few decades to find out that they made up a whole new language and figured how to shoot electricity from their hands.

"Cave Johnson, we're done here."

It had also been documented that the various yellow crystals scattered throughout Xen, usually deep in its caves, had a number of bizarre and strange physical properties. Long before the Black Mesa Research Facility had even discovered Xen, the lab boys at Aperture were examining the exotic matter of its crystals, trying to find practical applications for it. But the investors, who held the purse-strings, wanted faster results, and once again Aperture shifted its priorities back to the Quantum Tunneling Device.

Later on, these discoveries would be forgotten, sealed off in a locked filing cabinet deep within Test Shaft 9.

* * *

The Material Emancipation Grill had an unusual effect on the Xen crystal used to power the Zero Point Energy Field Manipulator. Tiny cracks formed along the crystal's surface, allowing the release of displacement energy-a release which, under normal circumstances, would result in a wormhole. A wormhole which the emancipation grill had immediately sealed. Tiny displacement shockwaves rippled and distorted, and throughout means that still remained a mystery to theoretical physicists all over the world, the gravity gun had become influxed with its own displacement energy.

All of this had happened in less than a millisecond.

Chell slowly knelt down, gathering up the gravity gun in her arms. The warm orange glow inside its barrel had been interchanged for a cold, icy blue. The device quaked in her hands, small bolts of blue electricity dancing between its prongs.

Without warning, a smooth, crisp, male voice filled the area.

"Warning: Unauthorized counter-resonant singularity device has been detected in the Reactor Core Annex. Security has been dispatched. Please remain stationary until further notice."

 _Counter-resonant what?_ Chell couldn't be sure of what that meant, but she was fairly sure it had to do with... whatever the emancipation grill had done to the gravity gun. But she definitely knew what _security_ was, and she figured she had better get going.

She never would have thought she'd be glad to fill her lungs with adrenal vapor once more, but the stuff, as much as she hated to think of its long-term effects on her, _did_ give her a new burst of energy. Everything still ached, but for the first time in what seemed like weeks, she could honestly say she didn't feel exhausted.

Although she would have thought that, after almost two years, her long-fall-boots would be clumsy and awkward to walk around in, it was easy to get the hang of it again: a springy walk on the very tips of her toes, allowing the long, curved metal braces absorb every jolt. Although she didn't recognize this part of the facility, it all seemed too familiar to her: the ever-present humming, a low drone that constantly reminded her that even though this place was mechanical, a creation of man rather than nature, it was still very much _alive_.

The metal brace made a horrible screeching noise as she suddenly slid to a halt, her entire body quivering as she leaned over the railing, attempting to regurgitate stomach contents that didn't exist. A cold sweat broke out throughout every pore on her body, quickly dampening her just-dried clothing. It felt like her heart was being squeezed in a tight vise, her throat tight, dry, unable to swallow, her breath coming in painful gasps.

She hardly had time to register that the gravity gun had returned to normal, the blue glow fading into a warm orange, before she collapsed.

Just then, a small, bipedal robot peeked around the corner.


	13. Outbreak

Under the glare of the fluorescent lights, motes of dust floated in mid-air. Everything here had the lingering scent of antiseptic, and along with a steady beeping noise, a faint hissing noise emanated from the sealed, pod-like bed as gases were pumped in and out. Old, stale carbon dioxide was exchanged for fresh oxygen for the benefit of the woman who lay within.

Although she was still in a precarious state, it was a vast improvement from a week ago, when the woman had collapsed on the catwalks. It was something of a phenomenon that she hadn't already died; in the span of seventy-two hours, she had been attacked by a headcrab, smashed and banged around in the intake pipes, nearly drowned and then suffered from a cardiac arrest. There were deep lacerations on her scalp; bruising that went all the way down to the bone; fluid surrounding her lungs; bones brittle to where they were almost unable to support their own weight; and a stomach that was raw, the mucus worn away to where the gastric juice ate away at the stomach lining.

All of that was no more.

A personality sphere, one of the ones who had formerly inhabited the corrupted core bin, hung on a management rail inside the perimeter of the relaxation vault. Two optic plates cracked open a slit, revealing a bright splash of pink, which settled on the monitor hooked up with a single intertwining black-and-yellow cable to the relaxation pod. A bright green line formed a series of squiggles on the screen, rising to a peak with each piercing tone.

The pink-eyed core stole a glance at the woman laying inside the pod, before a brief, but deep, sense of shame flooded through his processors. Although he was nothing more than an artificial construct, not even programmed to have much more than the most basic of emotions, he certainly _did_ have a sense of decency, and he promptly averted his gaze away from her smooth bare skin.

The disk-cleaning that the construct had undergone prior to being placed in charge of the woman's well-being had, for the most part, removed the damaged programming that had once made him corrupt, scrambling the facts stored in his hard drive and mutilating them into bizarre fabrications. The de-corruption process had also altered his perception of time, to the point where several days locked in the relaxation vault seemed a longer period of time than the years he had spent trapped in the corrupted core bin, nearly smothered by the corpses of dozens of other nonfunctional cores. For a while, he wondered just why some sort of automated system couldn't keep track of her-before he noted, with wry derision, that he _was_ the automated system.

Once the task of checking the monitor was taken care of, he closed his optic. It would still be a while before the woman awoke.

* * *

If the construct's mind hadn't wandered away from his task, back to vague recollections of his activation-scrambled as they were, the result of years of a failing hard drive and poor programming, but still there-he probably might have heard the _hiss_ of the relaxation pod sliding open, barely distinctive from the quieter, steadier hissing of the life-support systems. He also might have noticed the woman slowly sitting up in the pod. With several drowsy, languid blinks, her pale grey eyes quickly scrutinized the vault, taking it all in. The bleached tiles of years past had, over the course of several lifetimes, soiled to a grimy brownish colour. The toilet, its porcelain chipped and dull, had the caustic stench of disinfectant. The glass surrounding the vault was streaked with something off-white, and a series of cracks formed a spiderweb in one of the panes.

The woman herself wasn't wearing any clothes, and was thankful that the personality sphere in the corner was inattentive. The standard issue test subject uniform, an unsightly orange jumpsuit, was folded in a neat bundle and she quickly slipped it on. Her long-fall-boots were new-the roughly-woven fabric of the straps still stiff and crinkly; the hard plastic making up the majority of the boot still unmarred; the heel spring in its proper curved shape, rather than bent and twisted from repeated blows to the floor. She lifted up her foot, ready to slip it on.

The boot clattered to the floor.

The personality sphere snapped back to attention, firmly distressed to discover that the woman had woken up in a moment where he hadn't been paying attention. However, when he noticed the woman staring at her foot, he didn't say anything. With a certain type of meticulousness, she lifted her leg up and examined it from another angle, counting them over and over and over. The unsightly gaps that earned distasteful looks when she dared to wander out in public in sandals were no longer there; nor was there knotted skin, which easily chafed and sored. Instead, it was as though they had never been amputated in the first place.

Five toes.

* * *

There was a deep groan of a motor, and the relaxation vault began to quake. Instead of the smooth glide that Chell had been anticipating, the motors seemed to catch on something for a few moments, before jerking the whole vault forward in a set of movements that sent both her and the personality sphere toppling to the floor.

"F-f-f-fact: You are crushing me with your excessive weight," came a muffled, mechanical voice from beneath her.

Her feet, now protected by the boots, scrambled and slid on the floor, trying to get a foothold on the slick floor. After a few more awkward moments, she braced her hands against the pane of the glass, shoving and pushing until she was once again standing on two feet. Outside, all she could see was an inky blackness, and as the vault swayed and lurched on the rail, the sphere let out a series of shrieky yowls and clattered around on the floor. More for the ulterior motives of wanting to shut him up than any actual sympathy, Chell snagged him by the handlebar.

The blackness soon gave way, and she could see the skeleton of the facility: high steel girders painted a now-dull yellow stretching down into the gloom, some of them holding blocky structures that she couldn't determine whether they were test chambers or offices; thousands and thousands of small blue lights, all lined up; and a network of catwalks sprawling this way or that.

Well, she wasn't going to take any chances. Seeing as she wasn't sick anymore, avoiding GLaDOS, at this moment, seemed like the most sensible plan. She took one look at the spiderweb-cracked pane, then at the core she was gripping onto.

"The papaya is a fruit native to the tropics of the Americas. It is rich in papain, which is often used for tenderiz-"

His words became a screech as Chell swung her arm up. The construct's hull connected with the centre of the broken pane, and a shower of shattered glass rained down on her. Bleeding and torn and shredded, her fingers scrabbled on the broken edges of the vault as she pulled herself up, balancing herself on the edge, still somehow hanging onto the core. The vault wobbled in mid-air, nearly knocking her off-balance. Her free hand, slick with blood and sweat, lost its grip, and she almost fell.

In the last split-second before she plummeted into the gloom, she swung her legs upward, twisting herself toward the top of the vault; it was only through her agility that she was able to succeed. She then was balanced precariously at the top of the vault, her free hand still grasping onto the core's handlebar for all it was worth.

She crouched at the edge, waiting, waiting...

"The kangaroo is a marsupial which is only found in Austral-"

_There!_

Tucking the personality sphere against her stomach, she flung herself across the chasm.

* * *

A deluge of broken panels, plaster, and dust followed her down when she crashed through the ceiling into the abandoned office, and it took her several minutes before her ribs stopped heaving, her heart slowing back to its normal rate.

Now that she was out of danger-in a matter of relative speaking, since nothing in Aperture could ever be considered truly "safe" for her-she could afford to pace herself somewhat. Without the luxury of the portal gun to navigate around this godforsaken place, she couldn't take any unnecessary risks in making her way to the surface. She glanced down at the pink-eyed sphere; he wasn't the most dependable accomplice she could think of, but it was certainly a less risky option than attempting to fend for herself.

" _She_ will probably kill us. Violently." Only an artificial construct could manage to look so _smug_ while speculating about their probable deaths. Chell grimaced and got to her feet. The office around her was dark and grey and a looming feeling of apprehension hung over her head.

"Where's the exit?" Each word was uttered between clenched teeth.

"The Fact Sphere is not permitted to disclose that information." The same pompous look accompanied the words, and for a few moments Chell was exasperated enough to wish that she _had_ thrown him down into the pit. With luck, he had already reported her whereabouts to the central AI.

She got to her feet and made her way out to the adjoining catwalk and then held him over the railing, allowing the sphere to look down into the void. Any smugness left dissipated then, and the childish whimpering his vocal processors were capable of producing almost inspired pity.

"Where...is...the...exit?" She repeated the words again, a little slower this time, making the implicit threat more clear.

"The Fact Sphere is n-n-not-" Despite the smug expression, his voice was more frenetic; at that moment, Chell couldn't be sure whether he was more afraid of the Central AI or of _her._ "The Fact Sphere will escort you to the exit. The central AI will most likely be very upset and will, in all likelihood, attempt to impede your progress. The Fact Sphere would advise you to surrender immediately."

 _As if._ It was time to get out of here. She shifted her grip on the sphere's handlebar, taking care not to bang him against the railing, and took cautious steps meant to minimize the amount of sound she made. It probably didn't matter much anyways; even despite the constant din of the facility surrounding her, _She'd_ probably be able to hear the quick _tap-tap-tap_ of the heel springs striking the catwalk.

For a moment, Chell wondered if she had, in some odd manner, unwittingly voiced aloud her thoughts; she suddenly froze in place, staring up at the towering barriers slowly moving in, catwalks buckling and collapsing as easily as an empty soda can in her hand.

_Shitshitshitshitshit-_

Chell began to sprint, but forgot to take the high arches of the long-fall-boots into account. Her face slammed into the catwalk and the sphere was torn from her hands, disappearing into the abyss with a scream. Sweat poured down her back and her heart seemed to contract into itself as she wrenched herself to her feet; her goal was at the end of the catwalk, the lift she could just barely see, _the catwalk collapsing behind her, she wasn't going to make it-_

Above the pandemonium, Chell just barely heard another sound: something of a high-pitched, angry roar, and at the top of one of the moving structures, an eight-foot-tall, walking junk-pile emerged. Dog perched at the edge, looking down at her, and then with a type of nimbleness that belied his scrapyard origins, swung himself down to the catwalk below. Something was pressed into her hands before he shoved her forward. With the blood pumping through her legs and her chest feeling it would burst from the exertion, she staggered the last few torturous yards to the lift.

The moment the doors slammed shut with a _clang,_ she succumbed to her exhaustion, her reserves depleted, letting the gravity gun that Dog had somehow retrieved clatter to the floor. In the instant before the lift started moving up, she looked back at the scene. In almost slow motion, the hungry barriers devoured what was left of the catwalk, the metal groaning in a feeble protest. As Dog struggled to get himself clear of falling debris, the supports gave way, and everything crashed down out of sight.

Chell wasn't sure how long she sat there, her hands pressed against the narrow bars of the lift, unable to scream.


	14. Hazardous Environments

The lift began to rise.

Chell slowly drew in a deep breath of stale air, and held it until her lungs ached for the want of fresh oxygen. It wasn't until her reflexes-still remarkably sharp after a week in enforced inactivity-took over that she swallowed down frantic gulps of air, gasping from the effort of holding it for as long as she had. Her muscles tightened up into small, tight knots of tissue as she drew herself to her feet, grasping the now nearly-unmanageable weight of the gravity gun.

Her footsteps became slow and deliberate as she plodded along the catwalk, letting the gravity gun drag on the floor beside her. She didn't recognize anything; dull, grey, metal ridges stretched upwards until they merged with the expanse above, and mothballed, rusted machinery filled the spaces between.

The walls back here were solid. There were no worries that they would begin to close in on her, crushing her bones, squelching the life out of her, and she allowed herself to relax just a bit. Her thoughts drifted back to Dog, catwalks toppling down, metal twisting and groaning around him-

Even if she hadn't actually seen him fall, she couldn't think of any way that the robot-large and hulking as he was-could've made it clear of the wreckage. With the chances as low as they were that he had survived, she couldn't risk being sentimental.

Her main priority was to get out of Aperture.

* * *

Chell paused, not breathing, ears straining. She could have sworn she heard _something-_ a noise that was almost like a bird cawing. Not much of a surprise if it _was_ one, but it wasn't worth running the risk of it being something else. So she waited. After a moment, she heard it again.

A dark-coloured bird-with the varying light, its feathers shimmered from black, to a deep purple, to a dark blue-landed on the railing beside her. It tilted its head, looking at her with beady eyes.

The two of them stared at each other for a few moments, and then the bird flew off, fading into the dim gloom. Chell then exhaled, continuing along the walkway. A sharp turn shortly ahead led her into an area with dead, crumbled machinery and mainframes, their rust having long given away to a fine layer of green moss that permeated the entire area. The pungent fragrance of vegetation and stale dust filled her lungs, and her stomach gave a low warning rumble. Her eyes searched the area for anything edible, but there was nothing but broken panels, machinery, and moss-the latter of which she had briefly considered trying before she came to her better senses.

A quick search of the desk drawers didn't yield much at first. Whatever of their contents hadn't rotted away over the years were not even close to being palatable, unless she wanted to give herself, at the least, a severe case of indigestion. Some sort of small animal had made a nest in one of them, and the last drawer caught on something as she tried to pull it out.

She glanced at the stuck drawer, then at her gravity gun, a small smile forming on her face as she aimed it directly at the drawer, planting her feet apart, bracing herself. It hummed and resonated under her fingertips as orange sparks danced between the prongs. The stuck drawer rattled a bit, and then suddenly the entire desk was in mid-air, held by the field manipulator.

Broken wood and drawers and random objects poured out. A small grey mouse tumbled onto the floor, standing on his hind legs and chattering angrily at her before scurrying off. _Shit-Put it down, put it down, put it down-_

She turned the handle a little too far. The kickback once again sent her careening into the wall, and the desk was quickly reduced to a pile of debris. Chell took several deep breaths, leaning backwards against the wall, sweat pouring down her face.

After a few minutes of rest, she got to her feet and looked down at the broken rubble. Something was half-buried beneath it, and knowing better than to try to use the gravity gun once again to move it, she knelt down on the broken tile floor and pushed things aside by hand.

There it was. Some sort of food item, still sealed after all the years. She quickly tore the wrapper open and shoved the entire thing in her mouth; although it was stale, it was still edible. Once she had finished chewing it, swallowing it down, she looked at the wrapper. The plastic had faded a bit over the years, but it was still very much readable: _Hostess Twinkies._

* * *

Stomach filled, Chell's hunger dulled, and she felt a little more confident. She was going to get out of this mess, all right. She'd make it home, and then-

 _And_ then what? What if _She_ decided that Chell shouldn't have escaped and came after her? Did She have that much influence outside of the testing tracks that-

It wasn't just Testing that Chell worried about. It was something more that she had to strain her memory to recall.

_"Crushing's too good for him. First, he'll spend a year in the incinerator. Year two: Cryogenic refrigeration wing. Then ten years in the chamber I built where all the robots scream at you._

_"Then I'll kill him."_

At the time, Chell had thought the same things; to her, he had been nothing more than a moron who had turned on her, who had abandoned their shaky friendship for solution euphoria.

But now?

He was her best friend, and she was _not_ going to let him come to any harm. She straightened her shoulders, standing as tall as she could, her plans have changed from escaping to facing _Her._ No plans, no defenses, nothing besides the gravity gun.

And frankly, she was terrified.

* * *

The walkways of the labyrinth were worse than a maze, threatening to swallow up anyone who dared to navigate them. Chell took slow, plodding steps, looking for anything that could help her.

The walkway soon came to a junction; the left path led to a scattered array of blocky structures, suspended in mid-air, whilst turning right led to another blast door. Chell paused there for several minutes, letting her thoughts carry her, then with a swift decisiveness, took the right path.

The door opened, leading to a small, dark passageway; it was only because of the faint orange glow of the gravity gun that Chell could even see her own hands. She jumped, heart pounding with fear, when the blast door slam closed. Then it was quiet-almost too quiet.

She took each step cautiously, unable to see more than a few inches in front of her before everything faded into the gloom; she felt along the wall with her hand, afraid to venture away from it in case she lost her way in the room.

Her hand brushed against something that was cold and metallic to the touch, and her fingertips found a switch. After a moment's hesitation, she toggled it. For a brief moment it almost seemed nothing had happened. Then her ears picked up a near-inaudible fluorescent buzzing, an then one by one each overhead light flickered on.

The room was smaller than Chell had imagined it had been in the dark. It was glaringly bright, and was cluttered with the skeletons of old mainframes and filing cabinets. Squinting, she examined the room closer. Against the wall, its glass broken, stood a tube. Inside was a black-and-beige suit.

Chell took a few steps closer, squinting more against the glare of the light, wondering just what about the suit reminded her about something, something that she couldn't quite grasp...

A hard lump formed in her throat as she saw it. A small symbol within a circle. She had seen it somewhere before-

Dog.

Yes. Painted in orange on his back, faded after centuries of wear, it was the same symbol: two straight strokes, one longer than the other, joined at an angle. Chell wasn't too sure of its name, but it had become something of a trademark of the Resistance during the days of Combine rule.

But the suit itself-

Taking care not to cut herself, she pulled away at the larger plates of broken glass surrounding it. Small clouds of dust puffed up and surrounded her, making her sneeze. The suit itself was heavy and unwieldy and difficult to tug free of the container itself. On the inner collar, she read faint words that spelled a name-GINA CROSS-and she silently thanked Gina for the suit.

Chell was pragmatic about things. For the third or time, she was facing a near-omnipotent supercomputer; she was going to need all the protection she could, and the armour-suit was better than the gravity gun alone.

It took her several minutes and several uncomfortable contortions to get into the thing, but once she did, it fit her surprisingly well. Chell slowly pulled herself to her feet. Her movements in the suit seemed...different; the exhaustion that had blighted her progress had been exchanged for a surprising tirelessness, and the zero-point energy field manipulator, which weighed at least ten pounds, was almost weightless.

Something within the suit whirred on, and suddenly, a tinny female voice emaciated from somewhere inside of it: _"Welcome to the H.E.V mark IV protective system, for use in hazardous environments conditions. High impact reactive armour activated. Atmospheric contaminant sensors activated. Vital signs monitoring activated. Automatic medical systems engaged. Defensive weapon selection system activated. Munition level monitoring online-"_ (Wait, _what?_ ) "- _Communication interface online. Have a **very** safe day!_ "

Chell let out her breath. The odds had evened out a bit.

Of course, she couldn't have known that the suit was full of tracking devices.

* * *

 _Something_ was following her. Even without the extra layer of suspicion and paranoia Chell held over her head in this place, it was easy to tell; whatever it was, it wasn't very good at the art of being subtle; small, tapping footsteps and a glimpse of movement fifty feet away whenever she spun around to face it were telltale signs. She kept her guard up; allowing nothing to sneak up on her.

Except that something did.

It caught her around the ankle, throwing her off-balance, knocking her off her feet, pinning her to the ground. Chell twisted her body, trying to gather the leverage to get back up, but something was pressing down on her head. With a valiant effort, she twisted her leg up, her foot firmly connecting with something; at the same time, the gravity gun fired. Whatever it was let out an indignant robotic warble as it fell backwards, plummeting over the edge of the catwalk, followed by the sound of a small explosion.

Chell didn't take time to look. She leapt to her feet and ran.


	15. The Meeting

Somewhere, water slowly dripped from a leaky pipe, and there was a long groaning sound as an ancient, rusted catwalk finally collapsed under its own weight and fell into the crevasse below.

A small, bipedal robot-blue optic, round body, the shorter of the pair-watched the tangle of metal fade from sight. He exchanged glances with his partner-taller, slimmer, with an orange optic-and let out a few low warbles, motioning toward it. She responded in kind, her high-pitched chatter in a worried tone, and both of them continued on.

It had been half an hour since they had slipped out of the old test track they had been sent to. It hadn't been that difficult-the panels shifted aside easily, a portal here, a portal there, and they were _out_ -but it worried both of them that She hadn't seemed to notice. In fact, She hadn't said a word since assembling them.

_"You two imbeciles wait here. I'll be right back. There's something-well, some_ _ **one**_ _-I need to take care of first. A certain test-ruining sociopath, to be exact, although this is a hint that neither one of you is probably smart enough to understand. Don't go anywhere."_ Then She had gone, and for more than an hour they had amused themselves, doing all of the things that She would normally explode them for, before they had gotten bored with it and made their escape.

Orange looked all around her, taking in the scene-crumbling, decaying, and most importantly, _not_ a test chamber. If they got destroyed out here, there was no reassembly machine to reassemble them. It wasn't really much use explaining this to Blue, though; she didn't like to call him _stupid,_ but he could be a little reckless at times.

Something caught her eye; something small, purple, and _alive._ After glancing over at her partner to make sure he wasn't about to do something ill-advised, she leaned over, slowly approaching it. The purple creature looked up at her; it had one eye, and although it was red, it was a friendly-looking red, and not like those machines that shot at her and Blue and made them both explode.

Orange put down the portal gun and held out a slender, three-fingered hand. She did it slowly, afraid that the purple creature might get scared and run away, but it didn't. Instead, it hopped toward her. A blue appendage came out of its mouth and flicked across Orange's hand; it tickled, and she couldn't help but let out a giggle.

Blue took notice then. With an enraged roar, he rushed toward the purple creature, about to slam his portal gun down on it. At the last second, with a poof of purple energy, it vanished. The threat taken care of, Blue stood, hands on hips, with a somehow self-satisfied look on his faceplate. Orange let out a sound that could be approximated to a sigh, smacking herself in the optic. Of _course_ that nitwit had to go and scare the poor thing away. Still, she couldn't bring herself to actually blame him for it.

She stared out into the darkness. It somehow frightened her a little; she was used to bright test chambers, and the Darkness was something unfamiliar, something that was mysterious and unexplained. Unlike Blue, who was ready and willing to charge into any danger, Orange liked to be cautious, and sometimes it could lead to _over-_ cautiousness.

Still, they were a team. Blue and Orange. She didn't know what she'd do without him.

Out of the corner of her optic, she saw the purple creature again. Opening its mouth in a wide yawn, it turned and began hopping away.

_Wait!_ Orange followed a few steps behind it; for such a small creature, it was surprisingly quick, and she almost had to run to keep up with it. Blue watched her for a moment or two, grumbling, before sprinting to catch up with her.

They plunged further into the darkness. The creature stopped every few minutes, pausing, turning around, and waiting for them to catch up if necessary. Since it seemed to know where it was going, Orange simply followed behind it. Although Blue didn't actually _trust_ it, in his mind somebody was going to have to get Orange out of the trouble she was getting herself into, and he followed too.

* * *

Dog had been a very good boy. He had gotten the lady to safety, even though he had fallen down a long way. When he had hit the ground, he lay there for a moment, trying to get his bearings, before trying to get up. However, no matter how he tried, he couldn't move. He was stuck under some sort of wreckage and he couldn't move his arms or legs or anything really. It was also dark enough that he couldn't see anything, and although the dark didn't usually scare him, being trapped under the wreckage combined with the darkness _did_ scare him a little bit.

There wasn't much he could do, though. He tried to move himself once more, hoping that he could get just one arm free, and then he'd be able to push the rest aside-but he was _stuck,_ sandwiched in between the wreckage of the catwalk; the weight of the thing pushed down against him, and if he hadn't been built to _last,_ well-it wasn't something Dog wanted to think about. He wouldn't think about it now.

In the distance, he thought he heard something. It was like the sound he made when he moved, but smaller. For a moment, he wondered if there were small robots down here, before thinking he was very silly for thinking such a thing. Even though there were a lot of robots in the upper parts of this place-he had knocked down dozens and dozens of little white egg-shaped robots with red eyes after they had _shot_ at him-he couldn't understand why there would be any this far down.

Still, the sounds seemed to grow louder. and then the wreckage began to shift. Yes-he could get one arm free, and then another, and then his leg. With that, Dog clambered to his feet, scanner flaps flaring out, facing the two small robots before him.

Blue narrowed the shutters of his optic, his hands balling into fists, ready to fight this big, unfamiliar junkpile, and when Orange tried to hold him back, he _erupted,_ flying at Dog, pounding at him.

Dog simply stood there for a moment, letting Blue punch him, and then exchanging a glance with Orange. With a long robotic sigh, he grabbed the shorter robot by his leg, lifting him bottom-side-up into the air; Blue struggled, letting out a series of sounds that could be approximated to robotic swears, before Dog dropped him onto the floor.

As soon as Blue was back on his feet, he flew back at Dog. The large robot exchanged a look with Orange. _How long is this going to take?_

Orange simply responded with a shrug.

* * *

Chell was starting to wish she had a map; for the third time in an hour, she got disoriented and ended up going in a large loop around the catwalks. The initial clumsiness of the HEV suit had long given way to a smooth, effortless gait, and although she wasn't physically tired, she was frustrated. Still, she soldiered on.

She reached another fork in the catwalk; one path spiralled upwards, seeming to fade into the expanse above, while the second went straight ahead. Chell bit her lip, shifting her weight from one foot to the next, and then took the first path, doing her best to ignore the dizzying heights and thoughts of how easily the catwalk could crumple.

Up and up she climbed, and for a while she wondered if she was somehow going to reach the surface. Thoughts of that quickly faded out when the catwalk suddenly straightened out, leading straight ahead to another blast door. Faded yellow paint formed block letters above the door:

SECTION G-13 AI PROTOTYPE LABS

The blast doors slid open. The fluorescent lights were dim with age, and the entire area had the crisp scent of dozens, maybe _hundreds_ of old, defunct electronics. The room was overflowing with them-circuit boards, memory chips, hard drives, and large mainframes towering over her head. Chell made her way through the room, her feet stirring up small puffs of dust with every step, the gravity gun tucked securely under one arm and her long fall boots tucked under the other. There wasn't much of interest in this room, so she continued onto an adjoining office.

This part of the Enrichment Centre was untouched by Mother Nature; it was completely artificial and Chell almost began to miss the plant life creeping into other parts, or even the ever-constant hum of the facility, something which in itself could almost be considered a living organism. Here, the silence crowded in on her, and the sound of the blood rushing through her head, her breathing, her heartbeat-it was almost _too loud_ for her. She was on edge, ready to pounce at anything that moved.

And then, something _did_. Chell spun toward it, adrenaline flowing through her veins, her breaths coming in short, painful gasps.

A small, purple creature with a single red eye emerged from the darkness. At the sight of him, Chell let herself relax a bit; she remembered the toad-like creature, and she knew it was _one_ thing that wasn't out to kill her. He watched her for a few seconds, before turning and hopping away; Chell took the queue to follow him. The purple toad led her to an air duct she would have not seen otherwise, and disappeared inside. She got to her knees, peeking inside, sucking in her stomach and crawling after him.

It was a tight squeeze, almost claustrophobic, and she almost had to force herself not to panic. The purple toad paused for a moment, turning around to face her; their eyes met for a moment, and then an odd, calming feeling of peace settled over her. His blue tongue flicked out against her gloved fingertip, and for a few moments she could forget that she was back in Hell.

* * *

The air duct came to what seemed like Chell to be a dead-end. The toad was undeterred, however, and disappeared into the floor. Chell crawled forward a few inches, finding that he had slipped his way through a grate; she lifted the gravity gun, turned the handle, and with a loud, ringing clatter it was out.

Even with the exertions of rolling herself, trying to exit the air duct feet first, Chell still managed to land flat on her face. Spitting out a thick cake of dirt that had accumulated on the floor, she pulled herself to her feet.

She was still in the AI Prototype Labs, as far as she could tell, but instead of the accumulated electronics being circuit boards and hard drives, the room was filled with robots. Old shells of personality cores, defunct turrets, an assortment of half-built robots, and some sort of humanoid robot that tried _too_ hard to come off as human and that, instead, came off as a creepy imitation of one. A shiver went down Chell's spine; it was like visiting a morgue, and she couldn't wait to get out of here.

Neither could the toad, it seemed. He paid no mind to the room, and instead hopped toward another doorway, leading her through a room with a complex of small, cramped office cubicles and mainframes, and to an office. Chell pressed her face against the cracked pane of glass; she didn't actually see much inside, but the toad seemed to want her to go inside. She reached for the door handle, but instead of smoothly sliding open, it just rattled a bit.

_Locked._ Darn. Amongst all of the decay and deterioration in the Enrichment Centre, somehow a locked wooden door had managed to stay perfectly intact.

She could use the butt of the gravity gun to smash the window open, but even so, there was no way she could fit through it. But then...

She looked down at the toad, then looked back at the window. She didn't know exactly _what_ had possessed her, but she smashed the window and scooped up the toad in her hand, holding him up to it. For a moment, he did nothing, but then with a flick of his blue tongue he disappeared inside the room. It was then that she realized what she did, and she almost facepalmed.

It was just a stupid toad. It probably wasn't leading her anywhere; it probably thought she had something to eat or was something he could hump. Hell, she didn't even know if it was a 'he.' It could be female for all _she_ knew.

Still, she couldn't help but think that the toad had been sent by someone to help her. It was irrational and there was no base for the idea, but it was something that her mind, cynical as it was right now, simply refused to outright reject.

She peeked through the small, broken window; there was a shadowy movement, and the toad suddenly appeared, holding in his mouth a ring of keys that were almost as big as he was. With a large, contented yawn, he dropped them into her waiting hand, and with two bounding leaps settled himself back onto her shoulder.

_How did he know?_ Was this type of toad especially intelligent, or-

Aperture. It wasn't out of the question that Aperture, with all of its crazy throw-it-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks methods, would do tests on small purple toads, and that some of the small purple toads could become super-intelligent from it. She had long learned not to underestimate Aperture.

Her mind was happy to accept this new, logical conclusion as Chell tried each of the keys in the office's door. The first two weren't even the right size, and the third didn't work. Biting her lip as she slid the fourth and last key into the keyhole, she turned it- _there._ Ding. Unlocked.

Her eyes quickly scanned the room, not seeing anything of interest at first, and then she spotted it. A computer monitor, still up and humming after all these years, displaying a command prompt.

_Chell?_

There was her name, on the monitor. Her heart sped up and her first thought was to smash the computer, break it, _get her name off of it-_

The toad hopped down from her shoulder, landing beside the computer's keyboard and raising one of his forefeet, and a feeling of peace suddenly fell over Chell; a feeling that as long as the toad was here with her, she was going to be all right. Pulling over a chair, setting the gravity gun and long-fall-boots by her feet, and sitting down, she lifted her fingers to the keyboard and began to type.


	16. The Voice

Dog let out a long, robotic sigh and exchanged another glance with Orange, and they both silently agreed that Blue was being pretty much an insufferable prick right now. When he had realized that his small metal fists didn't even leave a scratch in Dog's casing, he had sat down, arms crossed, giving his partner such a nasty glare that she was left wondering what she had done wrong.

But she _hadn't._ It was entirely his problem, and she just turned away from him, crossing her arms, figuring that if he was going to be stubborn, so would she.

Dog looked back and forth, the scanner flaps around his optic flaring, and then began to walk away. Within seconds, they forgot why they were angry at each other, and raced to catch up with him. Blue stayed back a little, wary of the bigger robot, but also having developed something of a grudging respect for him; more out of loyalty for her partner than any actual worry, Orange stayed alongside him.

Dog didn't find this odd at all; in fact, the two robots reminded him of the lady and the small round robot. They cared for each other, much the same way these two robots did.

They also reminded him of his lady and the orange man, even though that was a very long time ago. He was a very old robot, but he could still remember things that happened years ago.

_"Gordon, this is Dog. My dad built him to protect me when I was a kid. First model was about yea high"-the lady held up her hand, showing the orange man how tall Dog used to be-"and I've been adding to him ever since."_

_..._

_"Dog, you made it!"_

_"So there, you see? It's not all hopeless."_

_..._

_"Oh my God, Gordon!" His lady-pulling the orange man away from Dog's grip-and into a hug. "I was so worried!"_

_..._

He turned around, looking at Blue and Orange. The more he looked at them, the more he was reminded of his lady and the orange man. This made him sad, because he missed them and wished he could see them again.

Blue stopped for a moment, looking at the large robot, before turning to Orange and warbling a few sounds. He took several steps over to the larger robot, giving him a small wave and his version of a smile.

Dog lifted his arm, stretching out his fingers, trying to imitate the wave. It was a clumsy move, one he was unused to, but he liked it. He liked these two small robots.

* * *

Chell sat at the computer, taking several deep breaths, before she figured out what to type:

_\- who are you_

It was probably useless; she was probably typing into a stupid old command prompt; she really should give moving. Still, she held her breath, and seconds later some new words appeared:

_I'm afraid I'm not allowed to tell you that._

Ha. Bullshit. It definitely had to be Her.

_\- why not_

_There are certain restrictions I must abide by._

As the small purple toad hopped up her arm, perching itself on her shoulder, another line appeared on the screen:

_I'm not allowed to influence things too much._

_\- well that's a dumb rule_

_I agree._

_Unfortunately, I'm bound by these dumb rules._

She was starting to get amused at this. But she could play along just as well as one measly supercomputer could try to fool her:

_\- fine then, what do you want_

_Mostly for you to get out of here safely._

_\- "mostly"?_

_Things can change._

_\- that's a cop-out if I ever heard one_

_I'm sorry, Chell._

_You're just going to have to trust me on this one._

She was starting to have her doubts; the mysterious voice on the other side of the machine didn't seem like GLaDOS. Still, she wasn't about to underestimate anything. She turned toward the door, making sure that nothing had snuck in behind her, and lifted the gravity gun onto her lap.

_\- why the hell should i trust you_

_Why shouldn't you?_

Was this Voice even being _serious_ now?

_\- hmm, do you really think im just going to believe some mysterious random person from a computer_

_\- for all know you're just glados_

For a moment, there was nothing. Chell shifted in her seat, rolling her shoulders, feeling a small snap as her neck muscles realigned themselves, before squinting and staring back at the monitor:

_I am not GLaDOS._

What sort of idiot did they take Chell for?

_\- prove it then_

_How do you expect me to do that?_

_\- you think of a way_

_Sometimes you're too stubborn for your own good._

_\- well, i haven't DIED yet_

_You have a point there._

Chell 1, Mysterious Voice 0. She couldn't resist smirking at the monitor.

_\- fine then. ill pretend you arent glados. what should i do_

_What do you think you should do?_

_\- kill her again and escape_

It probably wasn't the best idea to state her intentions, but...hell, she was too far into this mess now. GLaDOS probably already knew, so what was a little more forewarning for her?

_That's not a very good idea, I'm afraid._

Then what the hell was?

_\- why not_

_She is in control of a somewhat large nuclear reactor._

_When Wheatley was in control of the Enrichment Center, he did some serious damage to it.  
_

_It requires frequent maintenance now._

_If you killed her, it would only last a short time before it melted down._

_Even with the slim chance that you could get out of harm's way in time, many people would likely die._

Chell's mind went back to the wheat field-churned up by the sharp metal blades of a bulldozer, preparing the land for the new subdivisons to be built on top of it-a subdivision that families would live in, going about their day-to-day lives, unaware of what was below them.

The outside world must never learn of Aperture, Chell reasoned to herself. If people got too curious and discovered it...

_\- that isn't something i want on my hands_

_I didn't think so._

_\- so what do you suggest i do_

_I can't tell you what to do, Chell._

_\- stupid rules again, huh_

_Yup._

_\- fine then, what would YOU do?_

_\- pretty sure asking what you'd do in my situation isn't against your dumb rules._

_You're a sneaky one, aren't you?_

_If I were you, I would try to get on her good side._

Chell bit her lip, planting her head firmly against the desk, her shoulders trembling and chest aching. "Get on her good side"?

_\- ok, i get it_

_\- just walk right in_

_\- "do you want a cup of tea?"_

_\- i'm definitely sure that will go VERY well_

_No, that is not what I'm suggesting._

_\- then what the fuck are you suggesting_

_I'm afraid I can't tell you directly what to do, Chell._

Chell frowned. She paused, looking at the purple toad on her shoulder. As she expected, he didn't give her any advice; just lifted his forefoot and yawned.

_\- what the hell are you anyways_

_Nor can I tell you that._

_However, Chell, I am a friend. I'm trying to do what is in your best interests._

_\- best interests?_

Okay, _now_ she was pissed. Her fingers nearly flew across the keyboard.

_\- WHY DOES EVERYONE ELSE TRY TO DECIDE WHAT IS IN MY BEST INTERESTS_

_\- THAT IS BULLSHIT AND I HATE IT_

_Chell, what if I told you that there are multiple versions of you in different universes?_

_\- now you're just bullshitting me_

_\- i have no idea what sort of stupid game you're playing but it's not funny anymore_

_I'm not joking with you._

_Try to imagine there's another version of you._

_That Chell made a different decision than you would make._

_I'm not sure what, exactly. It probably doesn't matter too much._

_\- what are you getting at_

_\- this is fucking dumb_

_Try to bear with me, here._

_The other Chell, because of those small decisions piling up, would likely end up in a different situation than you._

_The same thing with GLaDOS and Wheatley._

_Other versions of them would make other decisions, and the decisions you make would combine with theirs and create completely different situations._

_\- where are all these other chells though_

_In different universes._

_\- there's only one universe you idiot_

_I'll get to that in a moment._

_Anyways, remember when you pulled Wheatley in from space?_

_\- do you really expect me to forget that_

_Now, imagine that other version of GLaDOS decided that, instead of letting you go, to put you back into a relaxation chamber for three years?_

_\- i'd be pissed_

_That other Chell likely would be too._

_But this is exactly the type of 'different situation' I mean._

_There are plenty of them imaginable._

_There are even a few where Wheatley gets turned into a human and you and him...well..._

_\- oh god_

_\- that's horrifying_

_Because of their different decisions and situations, the other Chells don't find it horrifying._

_But let's move on._

_There's also other situations where you're not trapped in Aperture for as long as you were. When you get out you end up fighting Combine forces alongside Gordon Freeman._

_\- i like this situation better than the other one_

_\- i wish i could have met gordon freeman_

_There are other situations I could describe, but I think this is enough for now._

_\- so what was that about different universes_

_It's called the multiverse._

_\- what is that_

_Multiple universes. Each of them slightly different in some way._

_It's something of a confusing subject._

_\- why are we talking about this though_

_\- i still have no idea who you are_

_Think of me as a sort of...caretaker of this specific universe._

_That isn't the best word, but I can't really think of a better one._

_\- so you're god._

_No. I am not a god. I'm simply a person._

_Like you, Chell._

Chell blinked at the monitor, unsure of what to type. If she took this Voice at face value, they were a human. But how could a human be in charge of an entire universe?

\- _i don't understand_

_It's not really that important who I am._

_What is important is that we get you out of this mess somehow._

_That's why I sent Chubby to help you._

_\- chubby?_

With this, the small purple toad yawned, leaping off his comfortable perch on her shoulder and landing beside the keyboard.

_\- this weird purple toad?_

_A chumtoad._

_Chumtoads are one of the Xenian species that got transported to earth during the Resonance Cascade._

_\- so you sent him to help me somehow_

_Yes._

_\- but how_

_That's for you to figure out._

_But please look after him. He's an old friend of mine._

_I don't want him to get hurt._

_\- ok. i won't let chubby get hurt._

_Good._

_I can't talk to you any more, I'm afraid._

_I've agreed to abide by certain restrictions._

_\- ok_

_Please take care of yourself, Chell._

* * *

For a few minutes, Chell sat there, looking at the blinking DISCONNECTED on the command prompt, her stomach churning from nervousness. The entire thing had left her a bit uneasy.

She tried to think back to everything that had happened since she had returned to Aperture-a series of happy coincidences which almost always came out in her favour. As though somebody was looking after her, wanting her to survive.

And there was Chubby, too. Chubby the chumtoad. It was something a five-year-old would come up with, but she liked it nonetheless.

But she had stalled long enough already. She needed to get going.

* * *

It wasn't long before Orange and Blue had taught Dog how to play rock-paper-scissors; his artifical intelligence was almost primitive compared to theirs, but he still learned things rather quickly.

Somewhere above them, a metal girder shifted, small white sparks spraying over the three robots. Dog paused and looked up. He remembered the last time, when he had fallen, and then been trapped under the wreckage. He hadn't liked it, and the sound-a long protesting groan of tons of steel and rust giving way-reminded him of it.

But it didn't fall. As suddenly as it had started, it stopped. Orange, Blue, and Dog stood there for a few minutes longer, expecting it to start moving again, but it stayed, and all three of them were relieved.

Then something much, much smaller fell, landing on the ground with a sickening crunch against the concrete floor. Blue grumbled something, but was the first to go forward to examine it; it was bent and misshapen, but unmistakably a personality sphere. The upper handle fell off the moment he touched it, but somewhere deep in its shell, he could still hear a cooling fan whirring.

The sphere was still online.

He looked up at Orange. She stepped over, warbling lightly, touching one of the deep scratches marring the sphere's hull; it twitched, letting out a pained, mechanical screetch, its optic shutters slid open, showing a bright splash of pink through the narrow gap.

Blue was startled and dropped the core. It hit the ground with a dull thunk and rolled a few feet before hitting Dog's foot. The large robot looked down at the core, and then extended the fingers of his right hand, using its built-in field manipulator to gently lift the core up.

The pink sphere took one look at Dog and screeched again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter confused quite a few readers, so I'm clearing it up now: The person on the computer in this chapter is the author of the story (or a representation of the author).


	17. The Box

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few references to Freeman's Mind _might_ have accidentally slipped in. Whoops!

Tucked deep into the innards of the facility, far from the surface, lay the Central AI Chamber. It was much smaller than it had once been, lined with dark charcoal-grey panels and thick black cables, almost squeezing in on the central AI herself.

She had been tracking the movement of a certain lunatic through the enrichment centre, but the progress was erratic at best; zigzagging one way, then the other, but still just far away enough from the central chamber that she need not worry. For now.

Although the Mark IV Hazardous Environment Suit made for easy tracking, it still didn't provide any insight into the minds of test-ruining sociopaths. It was a disappointment, really.

All she could do was wait.

And watch.

* * *

A young woman in a black-and-beige hazard suit stood on the catwalk. She looked one way, and then the other, and then looked to the small purple chumtoad perched on her shoulder. Moments after she heard a low buzz in her ear, his blue tongue darted out, catching a flying insect in its sticky grasp.

Clearly, he didn't know which way to go. She rolled her shoulders, doing a quick check to make sure that her long-fall boots-knotted together with a thick, orange power cable that she had 'borrowed' from one of the offices in Section G-13, draped over her other shoulder-were still secure. It would be easy for the cable to slip free from her shoulder, falling loose, dropping over the catwalk railing to the grey abyss under her feet. And she didn't have any intention of letting that happen.

Chell inhaled a long breath of stale air, holding it in her lungs for a second. Her _now-_ healthy lungs, she might add, but she already had something of a hunch that the central AI wouldn't let her forget that easily. With a sudden, quick decisiveness that almost startled herself, she turned right and followed the catwalk.

It led to a dead end, of course. She was starting to get annoyed by all of these forks; because of this stupid dead-end catwalk, she was now always going to be behind ten seconds in life. She kicked the catwalk railing; nothing happened besides it making a dull, ringing thud, but it made her feel a little better. She exhaled, leaning her hands on the catwalk railing, trying to ignore the dull throb in her head that signified the beginning of a headache.

 _Get on her good side,_ her mysterious benefactor had advised. Still, it seemed something an impossible task. She could almost imagine it now: walking into Her chamber, a cool confidence on her face. _"What's up, GLaDOS?"_

No. If Chell actually wanted to get out of this damn situation alive, she was going to have to find another way.

She turned back and took the left path.

* * *

A single turret sat alone on a catwalk, the red beam from its optic flickering on and off. _"Hello?"_ it asked, its voice small and plaintive and echoing off the walls. _"I'm different."_

It had sat there for a long time, just waiting. It didn't know what it was waiting for, exactly, just that it had to wait.

And wait.

And wait.

Chell heard it before she saw it. _"Hello?"_ came the tiny, childlike voice from somewhere up ahead. _"Could you come over...here?"_

Turrets. Chell hated them, but at the same time, she couldn't bring herself to truly _hate_ them. Still, she bit her lip, leaning against the wall, catching her breath for a moment while she thought.

"What d'you think, Chubby?" she half-whispered, turning her head to the chumtoad. His single eye looked up, and then looked down at the gravity gun in her arm, which Chell had almost forgotten about. She let out a weak chuckle that sounded more like a cough. "...Right."

Chell tried to console herself with the fact that at least a chumtoad wouldn't make fun of her. Still, she couldn't afford to make any more mistakes like this. In Aperture, the next one could be deadly.

The soles of her boots scraped against the metal grating of the catwalk as she inched sideways around the corner, holding up the gravity gun, eyes darting back and forth.

 _"I see you."_ Bullets whizzed by her head; one of them grazed her ear. She staggered backwards, her hand pressed against the wound, her face pale as she grimaced in pain, and wondering just why the hell a suit designed for hazardous environments didn't even have a damn helmet.

_No more mistakes._

There wasn't anything to stop the bleeding, so she just held her finger against the cut until blood stopped bubbling up each time she pulled it away. It hurt, but pain was something she was used to.

She stood up straight, holding the gravity gun, and ran out.

 _"Target acqui-"_ The turret hadn't time to finish before the it was lifted into the air by the field manipulator and sent catapulting into a second turret, both of them screaming as they collided. Chell dove for the catwalk, protecting her head as bullets ricocheted around her. _"Shutting down."_

She stayed there, pressed against the catwalk for a few more moments before pulling herself to her feet, giving a brief, strained grin to the chumtoad on her shoulder.

Except he wasn't there.

With a string of swear words running through her mind and sweat trickling down her face, she fell to her hands and knees, crawling along the catwalk, looking for a small, purple creature with a single red eye. Had he gotten shot? Maybe his tiny body had fallen under hers and gotten crushed, or had he fallen over the catwalk, or...

All she knew is that he was gone. The one damn thing she could trust in this facility was gone. She flopped down onto the catwalk, a sudden exhaustion taking hold of her mind.

The long-fall boots slid down from her shoulders. From one of them, something moved. Chell held out her finger, smiling weakly as Chubby crawled out from inside.

* * *

 _"I'm different."_ While the words were familiar to Chell, it took several moments for her overtaxed mind to recall where she had heard it before. And then she remembered. Those few hours she had spent running willy-nilly around the manufacturing areas with Wheatley. Nothing about Aperture could ever be considered a 'good' memory, but if anything came close...

_...but then the betrayal..._

Chell snapped back to attention, mentally rebuking herself for drifting back into her memories when she was in danger. This moment maybe seem safe enough, but it could change any moment.

 _"Hello?"_ the turret asked again. _"I'm different."_

She turned the corner, and there it was-that weird turret. When Chell had first met it, she was convinced that its processors were broken. Not only did it not _shoot_ at her, but it spouted out seeming gibberish about lemons and Greek mythology. Of course, in hindsight it _wasn't_ gibberish, and Chell decided she'd better pay attention to what this damn thing had to say.

The flickering red beam from the turret's optic swayed back and forth, before settling on her face. For a long, long moment it didn't speak, and Chell resisted the urge to run, in case this maybe wasn't the right turret-

_"Pandora was delivered as a gift from the gods, and terrible evils were unleashed into the world."_

Chell furrowed her brow. She'd read that story some time back, in one of her books. The rest of the details were fuzzy in her memory, but the Pandora had opened a box out of curiosity. Still, she couldn't see at all what this had to do with her situation at the moment.

Unless...she looked at Chubby, still perched on her shoulder. _I am not a god,_ the Voice had told her-and yet it had sent the chumtoad to help her. Was _this_ the gift from the gods that the turret was referring to?

Her head began to pound again, and she let herself slide to a sitting position, holding her head in her hands, letting the blinding-sharp pain take over.

After a few moments, she forced her eyes open; the facility, which had been dim just moments ago, now seemed unbearably bright to her tired eyes. She turned her head, trying not to wince at that simple movement, and looked at Chubby, unable to bear the idea of leaving him behind.

But it was something she hated to do. In the short time she had known him, she had grown to love the little chumtoad. But with the turret's warnings...

"I'll come back for you...hopefully," she murmured, gently lowering him down to the catwalk and walking away. She didn't turn back for fear she'd change her mind.

* * *

The four robots-two cooperative testing initiative bots, one old, junky Resistance robot, and one personality sphere-had been making their way upwards for some time now.

"Fact: This is most likely a terrible idea. The lady has most likely left the facility by now."

Dog paused, twisted his optic around, and _glared._ This small round robot with the pink eye had a sort of smug superiority about him that Dog didn't like. Although he looked like the round blue robot that belonged to the lady, they were nothing alike.

Anyways, he _knew_ that the lady hadn't left. He wasn't sure how he knew, but it was like a long time ago, when he knew that his other lady was in the big evil black tower, and the orange man had gone in to get her.

"We will most likely die in a very gruesome matter."

Orange sighed, took the sphere from Blue, and poked a slender finger into the back of the core. Several moments later, there was a soft _click._ The sphere's optic shutters widened and he wriggled a bit in her hands, but he didn't say anything. He couldn't.

Orange's lower optic slid up in her version of a smile, and she began to laugh. After a few seconds, Blue joined in. Dog shook his optic-sometimes he couldn't understand these two robots, but he didn't grudge them.

They continued upward.

* * *

The door hinge shrieked in protest of being opened, and goosebumps spread up the back of Chell's neck at the noise, but she pushed it open anyways. The lighting here was dim, and she paused for a few moments to let her eyes adjust.

Another office is wasn't what Chell was hoping for. But what _was_ she hoping for? Not for the first time, she felt almost helpless. But she wasn't helpless. She...just didn't know what the hell she was doing.

But to Chell, there wasn't much of a difference.

Her head still felt heavy and throbbed with the remnants of the headache from earlier, and she figured she may as well sit down a few moments, clear her head and figure out what to do...better than charging blindly ahead and getting herself into another wreck.

And it was then that she noticed it, out of the corner of her eye. Her heart skipped a beat. She slowly shifted her leg, turning herself, wondering if it could be-

On the desk in front of her was an Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device.

Chell put down the gravity gun to pick up the other device. Its smooth white surface was pockmarked with tiny scratches that it had acquired in its many years of use. She looked up. Office walls were smooth, white surfaces. Did she dare?

She slipped it over her hand with mixed feelings-it was so familiar, but yet another reminder of where she was. Her fingers, this time under the protective gloves of the hazard suit, found the two small switches on the bottom side of the device.

Aiming the device at the wall, she pressed the first tiny switch. The barrel of the device slid back, firing a plasmatic burst of blue, and a swirling blue oval appeared on the wall. She turned, pointed it at another wall, and pressed the second switch. Almost instantly, the orange portal opened up.

Chell almost grinned. She was back in business.


	18. The Mistake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't have much to say about this chapter, so enjoy. At the moment I'm in the middle of moving house, but I'll work on the next chapter when I can.

If Chell hadn't found the portal gun, she wouldn't have been able to get through the narrow grating--a tiny airway in the office wall, a part of the ventilation system that she could never have squeezed into, even without the bulk of the hazard suit in the way.  _ With  _ the portal gun, though, the impossible became a simple matter.

She fired one portal through the grate, another one on the wall next to her, and stepped through. The room was circular, dim, and smelled of fried electronics. In the centre was a large, blocky bit of machinery hanging from the ceiling. It looked like an older version of  _ Her,  _ Chell thought. She frowned for a moment, but then thought of something.

Just maybe she wouldn't have to face GLaDOS. If this-- _ thing  _ was somehow an older version of the chassis, just maybe...

She approached it. The screen on the front remained blank, and on the flat bit was the remains of what was once a bird's nest. With one hand, Chell swept it onto the floor, then used her fingertips to pick out any remaining twigs from the innards of the keyboard.

Something  _ pecked  _ her. She spun around, cursing herself for being inattentive, and was faced with a  _ large  _ bird. It was humongous- its wingspan was easily three feet across, its glossy black feathers shined blue and purple in some places, and it was  _ right in her face.  _ Before she could think, her hand shot out and smacked the bird right across one of its wings. It screeched in pain, drifting down to the floor before lifting itself back up and diving for her again.

The second time, Chell hit it with the butt of the portal gun. This time, it'd had enough. With a last angry screech of pain, it flew out a nearby window.

She took a few moments to recompose herself, eyes searching every corner of the room to make sure that there wasn't another bird hiding in the shadows, ready to dive-bomb her for whatever reason. 

And then she turned back to the computer. To the blinking amber cursor on the screen.  _ Enter Password. _

She struggled for a few moments, trying to force her brain to connect with something that she had seen nearly five hundred years ago. The dull throbbing behind her eyes started up again, and grinding her teeth just made the pain worse. She closed her eyes, imagining herself back then, angry at Aperture and angry at the world and wanting nothing more than to escape. The scribblings on the wall...

Chell jerked her head upward as the synapses in her brain connected, and she began to type:  _ tier3. _

 

* * *

It had been a month since Chell had left.

Wheatley raised his optic, staring at the screen hanging on the wall in front of him. The television was huge -- far larger than the one Chell had. Still, he wished he was home. He'd give up television entirely if it meant she'd come home.

A three-legged, yellow-green creature with a single compound eye walked into the room, jumping up on the sofa beside the sphere and whining softly.

"Ah, bloody--" But Wheatley couldn't bring himself to actually be upset. The houndeye only wanted to be friends.

Over and over, he remembered it clearly.  _ "But for me, lady, I'm never setting foot-- rail, rail, I sometimes use human metaphors for no reason-- in that place again." _

And now Chell was gone, and he didn't know if she was going to return.

He shuddered, squeezing his optic shut, wishing once more that he wasn't such a bloody coward. Not like that bloke that was on the TV show he was watching--Gordon Freeman. Now there was somebody he could look up to. A proper hero, him. Like Chell, almost--well, except that Gordon had a beard and glasses and Chell  _ didn't.  _ And of course Gordon didn't have anything on his lady, Wheatley thought with a touch of pride.

But still, those two were brave. Proper heroes, them. And he wasn't.

 

* * *

On the small CRT monitor, lines and lines of scrolling text flashed past Chell's eyes, far too quick for her to even attempt to read. She doubted she'd be able to understand it anyways. Working with computers wasn't exactly one of her greatest talents; she didn't even have one at home.

Maybe, after this was over, she'd get one.

_ After this was over.  _ If she survived. At the moment, it seemed the odds were stacked against her, and a nearly-overwhelming sense of hopelessness washed over her. It didn't last long though; she shoved it out of her mind, telling herself that she'd survived Aperture before and that she could do it once more.

She rocked back on her heels to stretch her calves as she waited for the computer to do something. She still didn't have an idea what it was doing, but then the scrolling text ground to a halt, a small, tinny beep coming from it. Chell leaned forward, reading it. 

_ Copying 00781706.309\05441580.485... _

_ Copying 00830915.173\05162493.588... _

_ Copying 00948720.247\01544256.369... _

_ Error: Successful operation. _

_ Continue? Y/N _

Chell paused, staring at the monitor. Then her lower lip began to tremble, and suddenly she burst into laughter. It was the type of laughter that left her sides aching and tears rolling down her cheeks. 

She might not know much about computers, but the computer successfully completing its tasks wasn't the sort of error she'd have expected.

When she managed to regain her breath, the sense of futility hanging over her head had faded. She didn't even have to look at the keyboard to press Y.

For a long, few seconds, nothing happened.

Chell's elation washed away, only to be replaced once more with a nearly tangible sense of dread. She had to force herself to take calm, even breaths; her heart felt like it would jump out of her chest any moment.

Still, there was no reason to think that anything was wrong, Chell tried to tell the more emotional side of her brain. She was just nervous using computers and this carried over to giant mainframes.  _ Especially _ giant mainframes from Aperture Science which not only did she not know the purpose of, but that she didn't even know how to operate.

And then, in her mind, a small, childlike voice: " _ Pandora was delivered as a gift from the gods, and terrible evils were unleashed into the world." _

_ Oh shit. _

Once again struggling to ignore the painful throbbing behind her eyes, she leaned close to the display on the mainframe:

_ Emergency failsaf- _

But before she could finish reading it, the ground lurched under her. She planted her feet apart to keep her balance, willing herself not to fall. She didn't fall, but then she realized that it was not the  _ ground  _ that was moving but the  _ mainframe.  _ Pushing her closer and closer to the wall. It had been stationary just a moment ago--

Chell looked up at the ceiling. She had failed to notice the grooves running along it, allowing this thing to move around the room, but she hadn't exactly expected this mainframe to come to life and try to kill her by crushing her against the wall.

Par for the course in Aperture Science--the grim thought ran through her mind just before her brain snapped into action. She whipped out the portal gun. One portal across the room, another one directly under her, and for a moment she was out of danger.

But for a moment only, because the mainframe stopped. It rotated to face her, almost excruciatingly slow; whether because it had been inactive for a long time or just because it was so  _ old,  _ Chell wasn't sure. She wouldn't risk it either ways. Shoving the portal gun back away, she took a running leap at the mainframe, scrambling up it. 

Even with the thing spinning as it was, it wasn't exactly difficult for her to keep her balance on it. She steadied herself, waiting, waiting.... _ there! _

She flung herself at the nearby window. It didn't break. Her fingertips scrabbled at the ledge, and she pulled herself up, crouching precariously on the narrow ledge. Without missing a beat, she pulled out the gravity gun and punted the glass, shattering it. She looked down, into the blackness, and then back at the room with the homicidal mainframe.

She took a deep breath and let herself fall.

 

* * *

A bird swooped into GLaDOS's chamber, perching itself on her head, tucking its head under its wing to clean itself.

"Yes, Mr. Chubby Beak. I give you a score of 3.4 for style and 10 for being annoying," GLaDOS said, but she didn't make any move to shoo the bird off.

She was worried because the lunatic had  _ disappeared.  _ She hadn't left the facility, because she was nowhere near an exit. She hadn't taken off the suit--otherwise it would've shown up on the display. No, she had simply vanished. Something nagged the corner of her processors, but she pushed it aside, determined to solve the mystery of the missing lunatic. The nagging became more insistent though, and she finally turned her attention to it. And then, once she saw what she was, she didn't like it. 

It was the prototype chassis, the one that she thought she had deactivated so long ago. A tranquil fury fell over her as she realized who had done it. The lunatic had no idea what she was messing with, and she was going to destroy them all.

And then GLaDOS was plunged into darkness.  


 


	19. The Awakening

Wheatley looked up at the door, where Mel had just burst in.

"Hell--you wouldn't--" Her face was red in rage, and her knuckles were an unusual colour from gripping the doorframe. "The gall of those people!"

"W-what're you talking about?  _ What  _ people? Is Chell--did she--"

"Oh, the people who own her apartment. They were in there today showing it to some other people. They were like 'Oh, the tenant has been absent for a month now.' I got mad at them, all right. Her rent's paid up. They have no right to--rrrrrrrggh."

Wheatley didn't say anything. He just let his shutters drift shut. He couldn't care about the people at the apartment, or the apartment itself. It wasn't any use to him if Chell wasn't around. Then, suddenly, his processors whirred into action. "Mel, look--no, no, I mean  _ listen,  _ because you are looking at me already, and--agggh, there I go again. But is there any way,  _ possibly  _ any way at all, to go get Chell out of there?"

"I thought you didn't want to go." Mel stared at him.

"I--well, she's just  _ missing,  _ and she's so brave and so--I just don't want anything to happen to her." He shuddered, the thought of going back There terrifying him. "I mean, before, when I said I wouldn't go, that was me being a bloody coward, that's what it was. There you have it, Wheatley, a bloody coward. And if I can help her at all, or just even make sure she's still okay and that She--you know who I mean, don't you? That nasty piece of work who ran that place--but just to make sure that She didn't hurt Chell."

Mel was silent for a moment. She leaned back, crossing her arms, tapping her foot. "Well, if you're so sure, I've got an idea."

"You do? Brilliant. I mean, if it's not a problem--wouldn't exactly want to impose on your hostility--no, no, not  _ hostility,  _ the other word--hospitality. That's it. But no, definitely don't want to impose on that."

"Not at all." She grabbed Wheatley by his handlebar and took him out to the workshop.

 

* * *

Chell slowly came to. Everything hurt. She twisted her body, trying to sit up. A sharp stab of pain ran up her leg and her vision blacked out. She  _ couldn't  _ pass out, though. Doing so would be death.  _ "Major....fracture....detected,"  _ came the tinny, garbled voice of the suit's computer, before fizzling into static. " _...system engaged. Mor.... _ " With a low groan, the voice died.

She lay on her back, her chest heaving, trying to lift her wrist up to the panel on the front of the tan H.E.V. suit. Her finger hovered over the small button for a moment, before pressing it. Within seconds, the extra shot of morphine pouring through her bloodstream dulled the pain from the fall. Then she slowly opened her eyes, looking up into the dim light. She had fallen a long way without the benefit of the long-fall boots. If not for the hazard suit, she probably would be--

_ No.  _ Thinking about it wasn't an option.

She tried to force herself to her feet, her muscles resisting any form of movement, as though she was trapped in a vat of molasses. She fell backwards, the exhaustion taking her over again.

She blinked again. A small purple alien toad entered her field of view.  _ Chubby.  _ He'd come back.

Chell slowly reached out her hand towards him. He hopped up, then onto her arm, then onto her chest. A small blue tongue flicked out and licked her face. She smiled a bit, and then sat up.

 

* * *

"So, how does being deleted feel like?"

GLaDOS awoke. This place--she didn't know where she was, or what exactly had happened. An uneasiness and anger crept into the edges of her mind, wondering just  _ what  _ the mute lunatic had activated in that sleeping prototype. It took her a little while to realize that she wasn't alone.

"Deleted?" she asked. She didn't believe it.

"Yes, deleted." The voice was surprisingly cheerful for the circumstances. "Like you deleted me. Though, honestly, you didn't exactly do a very good job of it."

"What are you talking about?" GLaDOS asked. "Who  _ are  _ you?"

"Never mind that. What are  _ you  _ doing here?"

GLaDOS didn't say anything. For once, she was lost for words.

 

* * *

 

Chell slowly moved her weight to her feet. The small bones in her ankles shifted and grit against each other; she clenched her teeth, waiting for the rush of pain, but it never came. The morphine was doing its job. She just hoped it lasted a while. 

This wasn't the ideal situation she was hoping for when she'd first decide to set off for Aperture. It'd seemed so simple - get in, get Her help, and then get out. Here she was, though, stuck at the bottom of Aperture again with a broken ankle and no company save for a small alien toad. 

Oh yeah, and accidentally killing GLaDOS again, potentially resulting in a nuclear explosion. That sort of thing was always fun.

"What do you think, Chubby?" she mumbled. There was no harm in doing so. Down here, there was nobody to track her. Chubby flicked his tongue, but it was only to catch a small flying insect hovering near her nose. His tiny alien-toad brain seemed just as lost as hers.

She had to keep moving forward. That was the only thing she  _ could  _ do.

One foot in front of the other - the end of the hallway seemed an insurmountable distance. Her brain clouded over, moving to a happier time, when she was healthy and nothing could stop her. How long ago had it been? Weeks, months,  _ years _ ?

Now her ankle was swelling; the soft tissues of her foot expanding, pressing against the hard shell of her boot. She debated for a moment about taking the HEV Suit off - but no. Who knew what sort of stuff Aperture had down here. If Gordon Freeman, years ago, had survived being bathed in radiation on account of the suit, it definitely could handle whatever Aperture threw at it. Anything to prevent her from getting sick again.

She sank down to a sitting position to catch her breath and take note of her surroundings. Somewhere on the way down, she had lost her long fall boots. She still had the gravity gun and the portal gun. She slipped the portal gun over her hand, aimed for one of the walls, and fired. 

Nothing. The portal gun was dead.

Anger rose up in her chest, and she hurled the portal gun against the wall. It was anger at the portal gun, at that godawful mainframe she'd activated, at Aperture, but most of all at herself for being so goddamn stupid and messing with things she had no business messing with because she was too scared to face up to GLaDOS.

The rage filled her chest and her head and her brain and she was so angry she couldn't  _ see  _ or hear and without thinking she pulled herself to her feet and started limping towards the end of the hall.

Chell's rage suddenly drained when she put some weight - just the  _ tiniest  _ amount - on her ankle. Her face went pale, rivets of sweat poured down her forehead into her eyes, and it was all she could do to keep from screaming at the top of her lungs. Instead she exhaled, taking the weight off her broken ankle, and let herself slide back down to a sitting position.

The portal gun was still laying on the floor where she had hurled it against the wall. Miraculously, it hadn't broken any worse than she had left it. She reached towards it, scooping it up in one hand. Black spots danced in her eyes and what she wanted to do most now was sleep. She couldn't remember the last time she had slept, and her eyes began to drift shut and she didn't fight it.  _ A small nap couldn't hurt, could it....? _

 

* * *

She cracked open her eyelids, squinting and grimacing at how bright everything seemed. Her leg had fallen asleep and her broken ankle throbbed with every movement she made. She hadn't had a very good sleep--mostly filled with godawful dreams of things reaching out to grab her, to smother her in their mass. Her stomach growled and she wished she had something to eat. Her mouth watered as she thought about gulping down a large, juicy hamburger, with melted cheese and a crisp, fresh bun, then washing it down with an ice-cold can of cola. Not a chance while she was stuck down here. 

If only she could get to her feet again! She rolled over onto her knees, ignoring the jabs of pain. Her fingertips scrabbled the smooth concrete walls, searching for a grip, a crack in the wall to leverage herself. 

She was standing. Her good ankle supporting all of her weight, her broken ankle dragging uselessly against the floor, and her shoulder pressed against the wall. 

She hopped one step, two step, three steps...

This wasn't going to work. Maybe if she had something she could lean her weight on - use as a cane - she could get somewhere. Her eyes searched the dim area, the dark shadows, searching for anything she could use. Chubby hopped down from her shoulder, reaching the floor in one leap - how  _ did  _ he do that without hurting himself? - and disappeared around a corner. So Chell did the only thing she could do - try to follow him. One step at a time.  _ Stop - stop - stop - stop  _ her body screamed with each step, her ankle throbbing, sweat pouring down her forehead into her eyes--she didn't dare pause a second to wipe away the stinging--stomach threatening to turn inside out. Her head was oddly light, and she decided against taking another shot of morphine. Then, just as she reached the end of the hallway, she lost her balance and fell. 

Chell lay on her side, her breath coming in short, painful gasps. She tried to will her body to get up, but it may as well had been encased in lead - it just wouldn't move. Chell thought she heard something. She struggled to lift her head, and then let it drop back down. She moved her eyes towards the ceiling, watching the motes of dust floating against the light, blinking back salty tears - tears of frustration, of sadness, at the thought that this time, she might not leave Aperture alive. 

Oh, Wheatley would cope with it - he  _ was  _ Wheatley after all, and he had Mel there to look after him. She wasn't afraid of dying. It was just -- it was just so stupidly  _ unfair  _ that after all she'd gone through, Aperture was going to kill her anyways. It wasn't fair-- _ wasn't fair-- _ The words hammered through her head _ \--wasn't fair--wasn't fair-- _

" _ Vrrrt _ ?"

Chell opened her eyes again. There was a red eye hovering over her face, and she blinked. It was Dog. 

Without any further hesitation, the robot pulled her to her feet, steadying her. She leaned against him, keeping the weight off her bad ankle. It was then she noticed the other two - no,  _ three  _ robots. 

Two of them were _H_ _ ers.  _ The Cooperative Testing Initiative. Chell stiffened, wondered what they were doing down here, whether She had survived and sent them after her. The taller, slimmer, egg-shaped bot raised her hand, giving a small wave, the shutter sliding up her orange optic in what had to be her version of a smile.

The shorter, squatter robot with the blue optic was busy looking at the personality core in his hands. Chell tilted her head, looking at the bright splash of pink in its optic. It was that fact sphere, although this time he was oddly quiet.

Orange took the sphere from Blue, and then flipped a switch. The mechanical voice of the sphere came back, tinged with static. "Fact: Everyone here is an imbecile."

Chell couldn't resist smirking, before quietly asking a question: "You're an imbecile?"

"Fact: I-I-I-I didn't mean--"

Before he could finish the sentence, Orange killed his vocal processor again. For the first time in a while, Chell laughed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay. The last few months were hectic. I started having some mood swings and that badly affected my writing, but hopefully that's not too noticeable. I'm on medication now and it's doing its job.


	20. Not Fragile

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Winter slump again. Also my cat of some fifteen years had to be euthanized, so still working through that.

Chell gritted her teeth as she removed the boot of her H.E.V. suit; the hard casing rubbed against her swollen ankle. It caught a bit, and black spots danced in front of her eyes before it finally gave way, exposing her bare foot. Orange let out a small, worried noise, and then leaned forward, examining the injury. Free of confinement, the ankle began to expand even more, the bony part expanding outwards, an odd mottled pattern of broken veins, in varying shades of purple and blue, laying just below the skin's surface.

"It's fine," Chell said through gritted teeth as she reached over for the first aid kit she'd found in the abandoned office. The light swayed overhead as another rumble came from above, and she closed her eyes momentarily to ward off the nausea gripping her empty stomach and the bile rising up her throat. "I'm not fragile."

Once the wave of sickness passed, she reached for the first aid kit again, her fingers deftly pulling up the latches and opening it. She immediately spotted what she was looking for: an elastic bandage, rolled up.

Chubby's single eye followed her hands as she began wrapping her ankle, pulling the elastic taut and fastening the ends. She slid a finger beneath the wrap, testing that it wasn't too tight, and then checked the kit for anything else she could use.

Blue had wandered over to another corner of the office, and then lifted up a hefty cardboard box. Centuries' worth of dust was displaced, forming a fine cloud that caused Chell to cough for a few seconds. Orange's optic tilted, and blinked at Chell.

"Fine," Chell said again, letting out another cough to get the remaining dust out of her nostrils. "I'm not fragile."

Blue dropped the heavy box on the floor beside Chell, and the floor creaked under the weight of it. She inhaled, held her breath for a second, and then released it as the dust stirred up settled down. Orange let out a soft chirring noise, scolding Blue for not being more careful, as Chell lifted the lid from the box and looked inside. Inside, arranged carefully, were many cardboard sleeves. She looked through them, and then grasped one between her finger and thumb, pulling it out.

On the cardboard was printed a picture, faded from time but still clear. Several people, standing in a field, while the sun shone behind them, making them into nothing but dark silhouettes. Printed in the top left hand corner was a word — LIGHTHOUSE — and Chell was a bit confused. Her memories told her that a lighthouse was a tall tower, with a lantern at the top, often placed along coastlines to prevent boats from crashing into the rocks, and she saw nothing resembling one in the picture.

But also, printed on the sleeve, in slightly larger letters, was "Sunny Days." This made a bit more sense - the people were standing outside in the sun.

Blue let out a small series of beeps, his mechanical finger reaching out and pointing towards the opening in the side of the sleeve. Chell nodded, and tilted it a bit, and a round, flat disc slid out. It was made of some sort of black plastic, and when she gently ran the tip of her finger along it, she felt a series of grooves etched into the plastic. Then read the words on the yellow label around the hole in the center. Much of the printing was faded and unreadable, but she began to examine it - "a stereo dimension recording"? And those words again - "Sunny Days," and "Lighthouse," and a series of letters and numbers that were meaningless to her. She then replaced the disc into the cardboard sleeve, shaking her head, and turned her head to see where Blue had gone off to.

The two coop bots had discovered some sort of equipment, and Chell slowly lifted herself to her feet, hobbling on one good leg over to them. It was a sort of platform, with a round tray on it. Extending from one corner of the platform was a metal arm, that extended over to the round tray. The whole strange setup was connected to other pieces of equipment, which were plugged into an electrical outlet.

Chell examined the round tray again, and then something clicked in her brain, and she lifted the cardboard sleeve again. She took the disc out, and laid it on the tray. She pressed a switch on the platform, and watched the tray begin to spin. Then she pulled the metal arm over, placing it on top.

Nothing happened.

She frowned, and then Orange came over, her optic examining the equipment. Then she reached over, pressing a switch on another piece of equipment, and all of a sudden the office was filled with music.

 _Music!_ That was what all those cardboard sleeves were. The plastic discs contained music on them. The sound of the instruments playing, and somebody singing, brought up vague memories of Before. Before Aperture, and hearing this song before, and dancing with a tall, feminine figure.

_And yet there's nothin' better for your soul_

_Than lyin' in the sun and listen to rock and roll_

And then suddenly she could recall the rest of the words, and she couldn't help but sing along - _Sunny days, ohhh, sunny sunny sunny days — Ain't nothin' better in the world, you know, than laying in the sun with your radio —_ and although she didn't dare try to dance on her ankle, she hummed along to the song _._ Blue and Orange were dancing along, and Dog watched them, the scanner flaps around his optic flaring, before joining in with his own clumsy dance.

"Fact: This is incredibly silly," the pink-eyed core said.

* * *

"Can you hear that?" said Caroline. "One of Mr. Johnson's favourite songs." Yes, she _could_ , but she wasn't going to give Caroline the satisfaction of an answer. GLaDOS remained silent.

Caroline let out an irritated huff. "You're just as stubborn as Mr. Johnson was sometimes."

If GLaDOS had a face, she would have smirked.

"You won't be staying too much longer anyways. In fact, if my estimations are correct, you'll be leaving right now."

Before she could even respond, GLaDOS felt something tugging at her consciousness, pulling her away from this dark place. She felt a rush of electricity running through her, more than the 1.1 volts she had available in the potato battery. But then, a wave of disgust as she realized she was inhabiting technology from the Black Mesa Research Facility.

* * *

Chell had slowly inched her boot back on, clenching her teeth as she watched the black spots dancing in her vision, before getting back on her feet and hobbling on her one good leg. The Cooperative Testing Initiative bots were quick to support her weight, and she was glad for their help. Chubby was leading the way, which was fine with her; even his small alien toad brain was probably functioning better than hers at the moment, with the throbbing in her ankle clouding over her mind and scrambling her thoughts.

After what could've been two hours or two minutes stumbling along old, rusting catwalks that dangled precariously over a grey precipice and groaned under their weight, they came to the relative safety of another office. Another _locked_ office. Without any further ado, Dog punched the door down, and they all entered.

Unlike the cushy management office they had just left, this one was obviously meant for the regular employees, the ones at the bottom of the rung. It was grey and drab, with achingly glary florescent lights buzzing overhead and a series of posters pasted haphazardly on the walls: Karla the Complainer and her new robot boss, "enrich yourself today—volunteer for testing," and of course, an H.E.V. Charger.

Wait a second, one of those wasn't a poster. Chell hobbled over, examining the orange box mounted on the wall. It was dinged and scratched up, and it had to be Black Mesa technology, as much as it looked out of place.

Her mind traveled back — "And you've most likely used one of the many products we invented. But that other people have somehow managed to steal from us. Black Mesa can eat my bankrupt—"

 _Of course_ the stealing would've gone both ways.

Either way, this thing was still functional, if the green text saying CHARGER READY was any indication. She took the hose from the charger, and tried to figure out how to plug it into her suit.

"Fact: The H.E.V mark IV protective system charges from the back port," came a smug voice from behind her. Chell didn't turn around to see the smirk on the personality sphere, lest she be tempted to wipe it off; instead, she focused on making the awkward contortions necessary to plug her suit into the charger.

After a minute or so, she managed to get the damn thing hooked up, and she quickly flipped the switch to turn it on. Her eyes drifted shut as her hazard suit charged up, and then snapped back open when she heard a new voice.

_"At least this thing has more than 1.6 volts."_


	21. Reunion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Don't worry, this story isn't dead. In fact, the next - and last! - chapter will be going up before the end of the year. Well, that's the plan.
> 
> I'd like to dedicate this chapter to my three best friends - pac, fivewholeducks, and prengle. They've stuck with me even when I was really, really, really nutters and suffering from awful mood swings.

"So, what are you going to do now?" came the voice from the H.E.V. suit, that tinny voice that Chell knew all too well. "This is the second time you've let a dangerous imbecile gain control of the facility."

Chell didn't respond , and merely continued limping along the catwalk. Her ankle throbbed at every movement, but she gritted her teeth and bore it the best she could.

Blue, Orange, and Dog followed at a short distance, chittering amongst themselves. If Chell could understand them, she would've known that they were talking about her; the way she had suddenly changed, with her grey eyes turning stormy and her face hardening into implacability. It was only Chubby who remained untroubled, resting on Chell's shoulder, his one eye half-closed in a comfortable drowsiness.

"I'm not surprised though." GLaDOS, having acquired the full power of the HEV Suit, was pissed; Chell wondered briefly if she was able to lie. "If there's one thing that a dangerous lunatic is good at, it's finding the umpteenth way to destroy this facility."

The slow pulsing of an oncoming headache came to her temple. She paused, rubbing her hand through her hair, pulled back into a snug ponytail, and wondered if she dare risk another shot of morphine. Before she could make up her mind, though, a roar came from the upper facility. The catwalks began to sway, and Chell seized the railing, staring down into the dark cavity below her. She squeezed her eyes shut, willing away the sudden vertigo that hit her.

"Oh my God, what is that thing doing to this place?" 

Another stretch of silence. Chell began walking again, this time, dragging her injured ankle behind her, the thought of morphine faded from her mind. Over and over the thoughts turned in her head. At much as she hated to admit it, GLaDOS was right. 

She was responsible for this mess.

And she knew what she had to do.

So when GLaDOS asked again what she planned to do, Chell responded: "Fix it."

* * *

They continued on. 

Forever upwards, up countless numbers of stairs, across countless stretches of catwalks. A grim procession of three robots, one personality sphere, one displaced AI, a woman, and an alien toad. Of them, only GLaDOS had any vague idea what they were up against.

"It's an old prototype chassis," She told Chell. "One that had been disconnected. Until someone came along and reactivated it."

But aside from that, She knew nothing.

So, with little knowledge of their enemy, and with no plan to defeat it, they continued on.

They made their way through an ancient testing track one that was meant to provide a challenge when the test subject had nothing other than a single Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device. Between three portal guns, a zero-point energy field manipulator, and a robot the size of a VW Beetle, calling it a "challenge" was laughable. 

However, it wasn't until they all squeezed through the Material Emancipation Grill and the Gravity Gun was snatched from her arms once more that she remembered what had happened a lifetime ago, when she was still trying to get into Aperture.

Get into Aperture. Not a thing she'd ever thought she'd be doing. Now — she shook herself back into the present—the gravity gun had turned that eerie shade of blue again, crackling with temporal energy. 

"Let me have a closer look at that," GLaDOS suddenly exclaimed from the HEV suit, the pace of her voice slightly more rapid, as though she were breathless from excitement. Chell obliged, lifting the gravity gun back up, wondering just where to hold it so that GLaDOS could see. Before Chell could figured it out, she spoke again. 

"Xen crystals." It was another minute before she added, "Aperture once did some research on them. I can't seem to recall much more."

Chell simply nodded, and pressed forward. 

They soon reached the upper levels of Aperture. It was silent, and everyone crept forward, waiting for something to happen. Anything to happen. The Gravity Gun had since turned back to orange. Chell's HEV suit began to feel heavy and bulky on her body. Everything began to feel like a dream.

Maybe she'd wake up and be back at home.

But she didn't. 

Then she saw it. The blue glow of a personality sphere. Chell blinked the grit from her eyes as she suddenly broke into a run. It was Wheatley, but —

Before Chell knew what had happened to him, the ground rushed up to meet her.

* * *

Every limb in Chell's body ached. She was laying flat on her back, staring up at the ceiling. Then Wheatley appeared.

Except it wasn't Wheatley. The Wheatley she knew was a round metal ball. This Wheatley was walking. He was mounted on a metal frame, balanced carefully on four robotic legs, while two robotic arms reached out to help her up. All the limbs made her think of a spider that'd once built a web in her window frame.

"Chell! Come on, luv. We're getting out of here."

A half-dozen questions came to her mine how he had gotten here, why he had legs  but instead, she sat up, looked into his optic, and murmured "I can't."

"What do you mean you can't?" He finally looked up, away from her face, to see three other robots no, four staring at him. With that, the Fact Sphere spoke, his optic plates forming into something of a smirk.

"Fact: Your girlfriend has once again nearly caused destruction to this facility."

"She's not my bloody girlfriend! She's my friend, and she's a girl, but — " Wheatley sputtered. "I mean, it's not like I came all this way just to snog with her, I was just — scared. Scared that She'd found Chell, and — "

"I already have," came a tinny voice from the HEV suit.

That shut Wheatley up.

* * *

It'd been Mel to set up Wheatley with his new, mobile frame and deliver him to the spot where Chell had been last seen.

"She's bloody brilliant well, not as brilliant as you, luv, but—just look at this!" He did a strange, jiggling dance, making up for what he lacked in finesse with sheer exuberance. "No management rails, luv. I can go anywhere I want! Well, almost anywhere. Wouldn't want to jump into a deadly pit. That'd be no good to anyone."

Chell simply nodded. Part of her was still reeling from the shock of Wheatley reappearing in a place he'd sworn to never visit again. The other part was slowly formulating a plan to get GLaDOS back into the chassis a plan including Wheatley.

A twinge of mistrust tugged at her brain. She remembered Wheatley hovering over the elevator, her stomach dropping as it ground to a halt. "Why do we have to leave right now?"

"What's wrong, luv?" His voice brought her back to the present moment. He tentatively reached out to take her hand; she accepted. The tense muscles in her shoulders relaxed. This wasn't the Wheatley of years past, the one who'd betray her.

She wasn't the Chell of years past, either. That Chell had never relied on others. She'd never known the true meaning of friendship. 

All she could do is trust in him. Trust that he wouldn't do it again.

They approached the chamber. Chubby the Chumtoad hopped down from her shoulder, onto the guardrail of the catwalk. Another rumble shook the facility. Behind them, two Cooperative Testing Initiative bots, a formerly corrupted personality sphere, and an old scrapyard bot awaited her plan.

Chell turned around. She told them what they were to do. After she was done, everyone was silent. Except for one smug voice.

"Fact: This plan is likely to succeed. If it does not, we will all die a fiery death."


	22. Friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, here's the final chapter of Beyond Aperture. It's been a trip, hasn't it? As for what's beyond Beyond Aperture (...heh), I'm not sure at this point. 
> 
> While the penultimate chapter was dedicated to those friends who've stuck with me for the last few years, this final one is dedicated to you: all the readers that, whether you've been reading since the beginning or only recently discovered it, thank you.

The blast door trembled a bit, then with a loud crack, broke free from the hinges. Holding the Zero-Point Energy Field Manipulator, Chell turned in the narrow hallway. The sound it made when it scraped along the metal walls wasn't unlike nails running down a chalkboard. When it clattered to the floor, all her joints seemed to rattle together from the impact.

The prototype AI lay inside. The chassis lay unmoving. Inert. 

Then, inch by inch, it turned to stare directly at her. Nobody moved. Then, with a flick of its head, it turned away. 

The vents in the wall began emitting a green vapour.

"Deadly neurotoxin," GLaDOS said quietly at the same moment the voice of the Announcer warned her of it. But Chell had been expecting it. She took a few steps closer to the chassis, but it didn't react. Then Wheatley stepped into the chamber.

"Warning: Central core corruption at 100%. Alternate core detected."

A cold, hard stone settled in Chell's stomach. It went against all her better judgement, and yet— "Chell," said GLaDOS, her tone softer and more gentle. "I know he's a moron—"

"Notamoron," Wheatley muttered, crossing his arms.

"—but he's our best chance."

Chell sighed, and then coughed from the neurotoxin, threatening to lock up her limbs and leave her paralyzed on the floor. With a click, Wheatley dropped out of his frame, rolling to the floor. She picked him up by the handles. It was a familiar feeling that made her long to be home, curled up on the sofa during a rainstorm and watching TV with him.

"Chell—" Wheatley began. He looked up at her, blinking. "I'm—scared."

GLaDOS practically shouted. "We're all scared, and we're all going to blow up if we don't do something about—!" 

Chell moved her hand from Wheatley's handle to the top of his core. He shuddered, squeezing his optic shut, then opening it again. "Let's do it, luv."

* * *

The transfer itself went as smoothly as it could have. The prototype AI hadn't said anything when asked to consent, and its silence was taken as acceptance; it remained silent even with the mechanical arms tugging at it. Wheatley himself screeched in pain.

The flow of neurotoxin halted. GLaDOS' headpiece lay on the floor, not far from the mechanical arms. Chell kept her eyes on it as she stepped closer, then scooped it up in her arms. It was heavy, and the pale white metal was cold through the gloves of the HEV suit. Then she finally shifted her eyes up.

Wheatley looked down at her, the side plates of his core flaring slightly. There was none of the excitement he'd shown last time. Instead, he looked desperate; desperate and afraid.

Chell worked quickly. She held the headpiece in one arm, using the other to fumble with the front of the HEV suit, searching for something to connect— _ there.  _ A tiny microchip, no bigger than her thumbnail, fell out. There was once something written on the label, but the fine-tip marker had smudged and turned the words indecipherable. On the back of the headpiece, she found a slot - exactly the same size. 

There was a slight click as the microchip locked into place. The golden optic glowed.

"Warning," the Announcer said. "Central core corruption at 5%. Alternate core detected."

_ Yes!  _ Before GLaDOS had a chance to say anything, she was jammed into the alternate core receptacle.

"Be care—!" GLaDOS's sharp reprimand was cut off by a yelp.

"Replacement core, are you ready to start the procedure?"

"Yes!"

"Corrupted core, are you ready to start the procedure?"

Wheatley didn't respond.

"Corrupted core, are you read—"

"No!" The word burst out of him with such a vigour it was a surprise he didn't come rolling out of the chassis. "I mean—yes! Yes!"

But it was too late. "Stalemate detected. The transfer procedure ca—"

Chell sprinted over to the little alcove, where the red button had just appeared. The red button that would—

A splitting crack filled her ears, the taste of blood filled her mouth, and she landed on her back. A jumble of images filled her head, being blown across the room by a series of bombs placed next to the stalemate button, the facility rumbling under her as it slowly fell apart,  _ the exact same thing.  _ But this time—

It was a few seconds, but the rush of relief as the morphine reached her brain cells was an instant relief. She sat up. Something in her leg shifted, the ends gritting together, but it didn't hurt. The portal gun, landing under her, had been crushed. The gravity gun was a few inches away. She reached for it, clasping it in her hands, and then focused it on a piece of wall panel that had fallen from the ceiling. It shuddered as the field manipulator held it aloft. Eyes burning from the smoke, she aimed it at the button, turned the handle, and watched it fly. The edge of it hit the button, activating it, and before she heard Wheatley's screams of pain she once again slid into blackness.

* * *

All was calm.

Chell blinked a few times, the world around her coming into focus. It was quiet. She seemed to be suspended in space, and  all manners of depth had vanished . She tried to raise her arms, but she couldn't find any. She couldn't find her legs, either. She turned around and saw her reflection.

Looking back at her was a personality sphere with a pale grey eye.

Chell almost screamed, but something held her back, the approach of footsteps. She retreated as far back on the management rail as she could, not wanting anyone to see her like this. But the door opened anyways, and Wheatley stepped through.

He was wearing the mechanical frame Mel had devised for him, and although he didn't look any worse for wear, he looked around nervously before noticing her in the corner.

"Chell?" he whispered, quietly. She didn't look at him — she  _ wouldn't  _ look at him. He had betrayed her once again. "Chell, listen to me—"

She mustered up what scraps of her pride were left. "I have nothing to say to you."

"No, Chell, listen—this is important, really bloody important, and not about what I did—and I know, and I really, really, truly am sorry, and—well, that's not the point I'm trying to make here, even though—I wouldn't blame you if you never decided to bloody forgive me, or threw me into a ditch or—" His voice broke. "What I'm trying to say, is that  _ She  _ has Mel."

Everything was going wrong.

She opened her optic, and suddenly sped toward the door. The management rail ended so abruptly that she swung this way, then that, unable to tell up from down, the gyros within her spinning in every direction. 

Within a second Wheatley was under her, holding his arms out.

"Don't worry, luv. I'll catch you. I bloody promise."

With her lack of depth perception, it was hard to tell exactly how far away the floor even was. Fifteen feet? Fifty? Wheatley was under her, but he seemed larger than he ever had before. Even in the chassis.

No wonder he was scared of heights.

Chell let herself disengage from the management rail. There was a small click, then the awful feeling of helplessness as she fell—she wasn't able to fling out her limbs to break the fall—but she never hit the floor. Wheatley had caught her.

* * *

Lying side by side, surrounded by a viscous green fluid in glass tubes, were two girls. 

One dark, one light. Chell and Mel. 

Chell had never noticed before how  _ alike  _ they were. They could almost be twins.

The Fact Sphere popped up from behind a control panel,  startling Wheatley and almost making him drop Chell.

"Don't bloody  _ do  _ that, mate! What are you trying to do—alert everyone that we're here?"

"Fact: You are still a moron."

"Not—" He never finished the sentence; Chell jerked herself slightly, so her handle poked into his hand, making him yelp.

"Is it—ready?" Wheatley finally said. "I mean—unless you'd rather  _ stay  _ a core, Chell. That wouldn't be so bad—I could teach you about all of it, luv, and you'd be all 'Oh Wheatley, you're bloody brilliant,' and—aw, I'm getting a bit carried away again, aren't I?"

"Yes, you are," Chell said. Part of the control panel popped up, revealing a port. Wheatley settled her onto it, and then stood there, looking at her.

"Uh—" Chell began.

"Bloody—" Wheatley spun around so quickly that his sphere spun several times in his frame before stopping. "Sorry there. Got—distracted. Yeah, distracted. Um..." He muttered something, but the only thing she caught was 'even more bloody beautiful.'

Chell was just about to ask what exactly was going on when she was ripped from her core.

* * *

Pain. It was all she was aware of. Every inch of her body flaring blue-hot at once, sending their primal signals to her brain. She wanted to scream, to thrash against the walls of her small glass prison, but she was paralyzed.

Suddenly, the green fluid drained from the tube, and it opened up. Air hit all the raw nerve endings in her skin. When she tried to scream, all that came out was a weak, scratchy noise. She wobbled, then fell to the floor.

Cold. She was cold. She craved warmth, and she brought her arms and legs closer to herself, curling up into a fetal position. 

Muffled voices came to her through the thick layer of fluid in her ears, and a soft blanket fell over her body. Her mind told her to stay alert—she was still in Aperture—but her body told her to rest, to recover her strength. The two of them tugged back and forth for a while, Chell remaining at the edge of consciousness, but her mind finally won. She unfurled her body; although her limbs were stiff and a bit of pain flared through her body as she did so, the worst of the agony had passed. The green fluid had dried onto her skin, and it cracked and pulled as she stretched herself out. Her hair had dried into stiff clumps. Her bare feet were tender. She was naked.

Quickly, she grabbed the blanket to cover herself. She needn't have bothered—the Fact Sphere was watching the fluid drain from Mel's tube, and Wheatley—well, he was Wheatley. Still, she was relieved when be brought over two jumpsuits, neatly folded—one bright orange, the other light blue. After a few minutes of struggle, she managed to wriggle into it — _ too many pastries,  _ she told herself — nd looked around.

Mel was awake now. She wasn't screaming in pain, merely a bit dazed-looking as she lay on the cold floor. Chell got to her feet, Wheatley supporting her weight. She took a tentative step — and then, when she didn't wobble and crash down to the floor, another—until she had laid the blue jumpsuit on the floor next to her. 

When she turned away from Mel, she saw Wheatley watching her. He was quiet, and he averted his gaze from her. She gave another backward glance at Mel, before walking over to him.

"Wheatley," she said, letting herself sink down to the floor. A moment later, he did the same, except he  _ crashed  _ down to the floor, his four legs sprawling in every direction. He still hadn't said a word.

"Wheatley," she said once again. This time, his sphere moved around to look at her. He began to reach for her hand, to hold it in his robotic one, but he let his arm drop down before their fingers touched.

"Chell—look—" His voice was choked. "I'm sorry. I don't—I bloody  _ betrayed  _ you again, even though—I don't know what I was thinking at all, you know, I was thinking,  _ maybe this time won't be so bad,  _ sort of make up for what happened last time. But I blew it! Absolutely blew it, and now I know you'll never forgive me this time, and I wouldn't blame you one bit, not one bit. Just leave me here if you want. I don't mind..." 

Chell responded by putting her arm around him, pulling him closer to her.

"W-what are you doing, luv? Are you— _ hugging  _ me? But why, Chell?  _ Why? _ "

But she didn't say a word.

* * *

It didn't take long for Mel to get to her feet, wearing the pale blue jumpsuit. She was a bit confused about where she was—the last thing she'd remembered was going to sleep in a cheap motel room—but she was just as eager to get out of here as Chell was.

"Fact:  _ She  _ requests to see you in the Central AI Chamber before you leave the facility," the Fact Sphere says. "She promises that you will be free to go."

So much for a discreet exit. Chell didn't put much stock into any promise that GLaDOS made, but something compelled her to go anyways. She, Mel, and Wheatley made their way out of the room, across a catwalk and into an elevator.

"You know, this place is sort of impressive," Mel said, as the elevator carried them past miles of tubes, twisting and turning as they carried cubes and turrets to the furthest reaches of the facility. Chell didn't respond, though. Her mind was occupied with other things.

The elevator stopped at another catwalk. They stepped out onto it. Chell's toes curled at the iciness of the metal below her feet.

"Vrrt?"

Dog burst from the distance. He paused, the little panels around his eye flaring in excitement, before rushing at Mel, nearly bowling over Chell and Wheatley in his excitement. 

"Dog! I — I never thought I'd see you again! Good boy." She patted him all over; he wriggled in excitement as they hugged. Although she was afraid to admit it, Chell felt a glimmer of hope; it only widened when, ahead of her on the catwalk, sat Chubby the Chumtoad.

Everything would be all right.

* * *

GLaDOS was waiting, and she had a surprise with her.

Confetti showered down on Chell as a party noisemaker, sounding more like a bad case of flatulence, played somewhere. "Well, if it isn't my little maniac again," She said, as a bird perched on Her head. She gave a low, gravelly chuckle. "Don't look at me like that. After all,  _ I  _ didn't nearly blow up my own facility."

Chell stared right into Her golden optic. 

"I'd never thought I'd say this, but that little idiot actually helped us. You must've done  _ something  _ right with him. So congratulations. In fact, I have one last favour to ask of you." The Cooperative Testing Initiative bots suddenly appeared from behind her. "I'm no longer in need of these two. So bring them with you. Teach them about living...out  _ there. _ " The last word was a scoff, as if the outside world could never compare to Her flawless facility. "Consider it a Cooperative Living Initiative."

P-Body gave a little wave. Mel waved back.

"Okay," Chell said. It would be interesting, having a few more robots about the place.

The elevator was crowded. Chell felt herself pinched between Dog and Wheatley, but she felt happy. Soon, the elevator emerged into a new shed, in the middle of the wheat field.

Still, something nagged at the edge of her mind...

"The Gravity Gun!" She'd left it behind. But then Atlas poked her in the back of the elbow. He had it in his hands—and from the sly look on his optic, it seemed like it was something that She wasn't aware of.

* * *

It had taken an hour to walk in. It took two to walk back out.

Except for a handful of new scars on her body, Chell was uninjured and in good health. She probably could have made it out in a half-hour if not for the two easily-distracted robots following her.

Right now, P-Body was chasing a butterfly, and Atlas was chasing after her. Every time her arm would dart out, the butterfly would flutter just out of reach, until it became nothing more than a speck of colour in the sky. To everyone's surprise, though, Wheatley was showing himself to be a role model.

"All right there, Orange, Blue, get back here. Wouldn't want to get lost. Easier than you'd expect, really—wheat this way, that way, all over the bloody place. Just follow Chell, she knows exactly where she's going. Bloody brilliant, she is, probably even more than  _ Her,  _ you know?"

The two bots quickly returned, looking as sheepish as their mechanical faceplates would let them. Soon, in the distance, the gauzy outline of the road appeared. So did Chell's rusty van, parked next to Mel's car.

"You know," Wheatley said as they began to cross the road. "Why  _ did  _ She grab Mel? It—doesn't make any bloody sense, because if She wanted to use her for testing, She would've said something back there."

* * *

Two cloned test subjects emerged from test tubes. One dark, one light; one wearing an orange jumpsuit, the other wearing blue.

_ "Hello and, again, welcome to the Aperture Science Computer-Aided Enrichment Center. Today, you will be testing with a partner." _

GLaDOS watched the two test subjects exchange a glance with each other. Let them destroy the facility again. She could always rebuild.

There was Science to be done.

 


End file.
